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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29804343">Busy seeing red</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantomato/pseuds/Phantomato'>Phantomato</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apologies, Breaking Up &amp; Making Up, M/M, Pre-First War with Voldemort, Sane Tom Riddle, Tom Riddle-centric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:55:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,055</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29804343</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantomato/pseuds/Phantomato</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom Riddle, newly back in Britain and preoccupied with his plans for power, makes a mess and learns to apologize.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nott Sr./Tom Riddle | Voldemort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Look at that! A set number of chapters. The story’s about 25k words and mostly done, barring some editing, so I’m targeting regular weekly updates until we hit the end.</p><p>For this AU, we’re generally canon up until Tom/Voldemort comes back from his 10 years out of the country. He’s got five horcruxes, dead parents, all that. For this story, I’m making the assumption that the Death Eaters have not yet been created, his old school friends still think of themselves as the Knights of Walpurgis, and no one has a Dark Mark.</p><p>The inspiration for this has been the numerous terrible public apologies I’ve seen in the past few months. Tom will do a bad job to start, but unlike our disappointing public figures, he will eventually do a better job at meaningfully acknowledging his actions.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When did Tom Riddle know he was going to start sleeping with Thoros Nott again?</p><p>It might have been after the Knights gathering in early October, just over a month after he had returned from a decade spent abroad. Tom pushed Thoros up against the wall next to the floo—Thoros had dallied long enough to be the last man to leave—and snogged him like they were teenagers, pressing his thigh between Thor’s legs as he ground down against it. Tom had left more than one bite mark on his partner just to see the evidence of his presence, and it was juvenile and grotesque and Thoros had touched the one on his bare clavicle reverently, like a gift from a god. Tom had known for sure, at that moment, that they would sleep together soon.</p><p>But perhaps it was earlier, when Thoros had spent a late September afternoon enjoying the autumn sun in the Malfoy rose garden, holding Tom’s arm and allowing him to lead Thor around as he told tales of his time abroad while Thoros laughed and tutted and was generally an attentive listener. Thor’s hand had slipped down to his own in a gentle hold as he made to say his goodbyes, and Tom had brought that careful hand to his lips, gracing Thoros with the lightest of kisses. That had been a promise of more, hadn’t it?</p><p>Maybe it was his first week back, on the day when Thoros got the news from Abraxas and came to the manor for dinner, drinking and reminiscing with Tom in his private rooms late into the night. Tom had asked after Thor’s life, in that long decade apart, and he’d listened to Thoros, actually listened and wondered at just how much he’d missed. Tom should have taken that for the sign it was.</p><p>Regardless, it all led to the night that Tom finally offered. They’d been together again after a meeting, all heated kisses and grinding of hips and thighs and groins, when Tom tried to pull Thor into his bedroom.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not having sex in one of Abraxas’ guest suites,” Thoros insisted, hanging back by the entrance to Tom’s room. “Merlin, we’re too old for this sneaking around.”</p><p>“You used to—” Tom began, eyes flashing red with barely-suppressed frustration.</p><p>“I used to be a gullible idiot swayed by a pretty face,” Thoros interrupted whatever accusation Tom had been working toward. “Neither of us is pretty enough for that, anymore.”</p><p>“So you’re not interested.” Tom’s tone was frigid as he fingered his wand, that eerie bone-white thing that had always looked too wicked to belong to a schoolchild. It was a fitting weapon for a man who went by Lord Voldemort, Thoros supposed. Tom had always been too precocious, too big to fit in a child’s role.</p><p>He sighed, tipping his head back as he silently asked whatever deities were out there for mercy. He was going to do the wrong thing, again. “Of course I’m interested, Tom,” he said, his voice as soft as it could be, at this age. “Come home with me, though.”</p><p>“I am your lord, Thoros,” Tom warned as he moved toward Thor. Despite being the shorter man between the two, he had always been the more intimidating—Thoros wasn’t sure, now, whether to receive this action as a threat or as a sign of acceptance.</p><p>Probably both, knowing Tom.</p><p>Still. Thoros was no longer the sheltered pureblood heir he had been in his younger days, and Tom Riddle’s power alone—though breathtaking—wasn’t enough to cut through years of experience with the other man. His bluff and bluster, well, those were classic Tom. Thoros only leaned further against the door frame and said, “I refuse to call the man I’m sleeping with by a formal title, and I’m even less inclined to use your fanciful pseudonym.”</p><p>Tom looked mad enough to spit. Thoros took a step back and straightened up; he wasn’t stupid.</p><p>“Those are my boundaries,” he held his hands up, palms out, in a placating gesture, “if they’re deal-breakers for you, we can forget this.”</p><p>Tom seemed to actually weigh it, and Thoros almost laughed; only a great deal of self-preservation helped keep him steady. Tom Riddle <i>would</i> have to consider whether the sex was worth the use of the name in bed. For Thoros, it would never be a question. For Thoros, no matter his familial strife, his birth identity had always been good enough. </p><p>But then—Tom nodded, and took Thor’s hand, and Thoros led them through the floo, and Nott Castle was brighter for having him in it.</p><p>Tom was so painfully skinny that it was hard for Thor to bear. In his youth, Tom Riddle had been an adonis-like figure, too perfect to look at for long, and the diminishment of that spoke as much to mental as physical change. He’d revelled in his well-earned vanity, at the time. </p><p>And that was to say nothing of the scars.</p><p>Thoros was older, too—he knew quite well the limits imposed by age—but Tom’s differences were startling. Concerning. Thor wanted to wrap him in cotton wool and keep him safe, but—but there would never be a way to keep Tom from himself.</p><p>If Thoros kissed him a bit harder, held his hand a bit longer, than had been their usual… it had been fifteen years, yes?</p><p>They didn’t fuck like the old days, when Tom had been healthy and athletic. Tom didn’t admit that anything had changed, that he’d need any accommodations, but Thor rode him, letting Tom take the lead without having to work for it, then fucked him until they were both spent. And—oh, it was so beautiful, to see and hear and <i>feel</i> his old lover after so long.</p><p>Thoros carefully cleaned and tucked them into bed. With Tom cradled against his chest and his nose in that dark, wavy hair, Thoros could almost feel like everything between them would be okay.</p>
<hr/><p>The first rays of dawn lifted the veil of sleep, and Tom Riddle woke to find himself warm, clean, and comfortable in a bedroom that was more nostalgic recollection than concrete reality. Thor, perhaps still asleep, shifted under the heavy blankets. They both had always run cold at night in this drafty old castle. Thoros had been affectionate last night, which was—Tom wasn’t sure how to process that, yet. He’d also been unobtrusive about it, though, and so Tom didn’t have to react. Any good Slytherin, and Tom Riddle was the best of them, knew to avoid dying on pointless hills.</p><p>Thor blinked blearily. He was awake, then. A perfect, captive audience for Tom.</p><p>“It’s not that I hate the name Tom,” Tom said, breaking the early-morning silence with a rustle of sheets and whispered words. Thor turned toward him and Tom clutched the blankets closer. He refused to contemplate the distraction of wandering hands. Thinking, in general, was a bad idea right now; even indisposed, Lord Voldemort should not second-guess himself, and if he decided to indulge in—in <i>bearing one’s soul</i>, and wasn’t that a laugh, he would indulge it fully. “I hate the banality.”</p><p>“I thought it was the connection to your father,” Thor mumbled beside him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. God, his eyes were as beautiful as ever, still the same curious hazel that had tracked Tom since they were boys. His own blue was looking a bit—brown was generous, really. They were turning red, redder with each bit of soul, each new dark ritual sapping away at his humanity, not that he’d ever felt much need for it. What was humanity when there was power to be had?</p><p>Except Thoros was his age, and he was fully human, and he was gorgeous. Not in the way that a man like Abraxas was attractive, what with his silky platinum blond hair and ostentatious outfits—how his wife tolerated his flamboyance, Tom would never understand—or even someone like, and he hated to admit this, the rugged masculinity of Antonin, whose aversion to a razor was serving him well at their age. Thor had a mildness about him: mid-tone hazel eyes and mid-brown hair, tall but still fairly thin and a face that was neither extremely sharp-featured nor very square, he was just on the right side of handsome in a way that would never be remarkable.</p><p>Tom had been remarkable, he knew. He had been devastatingly good-looking in his youth, and he’d cultivated it intentionally, and still he’d jumped right out of that as soon as he’d found a way to exchange it for power. When they were young, it had been Thoros who’d been outclassed by his match with Tom, though the relative privacy of their trysts meant that never truly mattered. Now, Tom was shattered to realize Thor outclassed him.</p><p>Right. He took a deep breath and ruthlessly forced those thoughts away.</p><p>“When I was younger, maybe,” Tom acknowledged what Thor had said. “He’s been dead for almost three decades, though; it started feeling like a petulant fury when I was around 30.” The gold band of the Gaunt ring winked ominously from his finger in the shifting light of dawn. Sometimes, even Tom felt uneasy around his horcruxes. “Life has a way of changing us, doesn’t it? I’m not sure it was ever truly about my father. Maybe it had more to do with my mother all along, for being magical but condemning me to so much cruel Muggledom.”</p><p>Thor blinked at him and frowned, and Tom would sooner kill someone than admit it, but the expression of disapproval was… sweet, really. It was good to know Thoros still truly had enough affection for him to bother caring. “You murdered three members of your own family and now you think—you think it was misplaced anger this whole time? That is a <i>hell</i> of lame apology.”</p><p>“Good thing it wasn’t an apology!” Tom quipped, smirking as Thoros slumped back into his pillows. “My father served his purpose, anyway.”</p><p>“You could’ve extorted him,” Thoros said, resurfacing their old argument.</p><p>Tom recognized it for the dodge that it was, but allowed the topic to change. No use arguing the ethics of murder with Thor. They disagreed, but Thor was still willing to work with him, and that had to be enough.</p><p>No. It was enough, and if it ever stopped being enough, Tom would—would make him stay. There were ways of coercing a person, of playing into their deepest-held desires, and keeping them in one’s thrall. And Thoros should be easiest of all his followers, because Thor didn’t care so much about the material things or petty cruelties wanted by the others; he’d probably follow Tom just for a place in his bed. Or, Tom’s place in Thor’s bed. Tom studiously ignored the pressing sense that Thoros expected more than just the sex, and even more viciously denied the strange part of him that whispered Tom was happy to provide more than just the sex.</p><p>Thoros was a beautiful, useful man to keep around. He could express his disapproval in private, between them, for now.</p><p>“The Muggle world—it’s different, it would have been a pain,” Tom waved his hand lazily, “Easier to have them all gone. Not like with your father, who was old enough to die soon anyway, and who had a title worth inheriting. I wasn’t about to tolerate <i>Christmas dinners</i> with the Riddles for forty years for the sake of the wrong currency.”</p><p>“Mmm,” Thor flipped onto his side, eyes narrowed at Tom, “not when you had Abraxas and I wrapped around your pinky, I suppose.” Thoros appeared to deliberate something, and just as Tom was beginning to get annoyed by the wait, he said, “Are you staying with him because he’s married, Tom? Is that why you didn’t ask me?”</p><p>Tom wasn’t so blind as to not hear the undercurrent of hurt in Thor’s voice.</p><p>It shouldn’t have belonged there. Tom hadn’t been seeing <i>anyone</i> for years before he left Britain, and even if Thoros had been his last regular partner—</p><p>And one evening, one <i>fuck</i>—or did it count as two? he never was sure how to define these things, if there was a minimum waiting period or if it was based on acts of penetration or if it was all down to the partner—didn’t mean they were partnered again—</p><p>And who even <i>was</i> Thoros Nott, to imply anything less than admiration for being given the chance to support Lord Voldemort financially? Because there wasn’t a platform, yet; financial support was akin to buying space for one’s own interests when Lord Voldemort ascended to power.</p><p>It came back to the question of Thoros’ interests, of course. If this was just sex, well, Tom could offer that for the backing of the head of house Nott, even as Thor grew old and ugly and grey. Tom wasn’t much better than that, these days; god knew why Thoros was still interested.</p><p>And Tom was only interested because—because he had been without, for so long. Ten years in the company of the darkest parts of the magical world left someone wanting for physical affection. He was still, in some small part, human, and had human needs. It was just sex.</p><p>Just sex. And Malfoy Manor, that made it clear. He couldn’t have a partner living with him in Malfoy Manor, let alone another man as influential as Thoros, which is why—</p><p>Tom Riddle jumped out of Thoros’ bed suddenly. He had <i>left the manor because Thor requested it</i>. Oh, <i>fuck</i>, it was because Abraxas was married.</p><p>Lord Voldemort couldn’t be a kept man, and he absolutely could <i>not</i> have an equal partner. One of those was an inevitability, at least in the minds of the public, if he stayed as a guest of the House of Nott, the head of which was a confirmed bachelor.</p><p>Tom did not say any of that out loud. Instead, he looked down into the tired face of his lover and sneeringly said, “I didn’t ask you because you can’t be trusted to know your place.”</p>
<hr/><p>Thoros Nott had to be married off. </p><p>Tom could still sleep with him, of course. Marriage was no hindrance to a sexual relationship; he and Abraxas hadn’t stopped seeing each other until Lucius had been born and fatherhood had made him too busy for extramarital affairs. That had been fine with Tom—he’d been balancing Abraxas and Thoros and it had delayed his hunt for the founders’ artifacts so much at the time that he’d gladly let Abraxas go. Thor had been enough until even he was too distracting and Tom had cut him loose, too.</p><p>They had been, what, in their late 20s? Perhaps just around 30? Something like that, and it had been a decade and a half since then, so really: why wasn’t Thoros married? He was the patriarch of his own house. He was expected to produce an heir somehow. Tom couldn’t have a supporter without an heir, if he was planning to live forever. Someone would have to be around to carry on the Nott mantle of supporting Lord Voldemort. </p><p>He convened a meeting with Malfoy and Lestrange, who had both shown strong dedication to the concept of family duty. It helped that both had sons—the ones with sons were always a bit more fanatical about reproduction. It was the most alarmingly Muggle thing about wizards.</p><p>Tom never understood why the magical world didn’t put more stock in daughters, if they all had the same capacity for power, and if he had a personal stake in that matter, well. The only people who knew the full extent of it were dead.</p><p>“I don’t think he wants to marry,” was Edmund’s response, delivered like he was chewing glass to force the words out.</p><p>Abraxas, less cowed by Tom’s glowering presence, muttered, “Not to a woman, anyway.”</p><p>“What he wants is of little importance to me,” Tom lied easily. Neither Abraxas or Edmund appeared to buy it. All three let the moment pass without comment. “I am concerned about the legacies of all of my closest followers, and of the Knights, he’s the only man to remain unmarried.”</p><p>“Dolohov doesn’t have a child,” Abraxas said, leaning back in his chair with affected disinterest. And it was his chair; they met in the office adjoining Tom’s guest suite at Malfoy Manor. Tom hadn’t left again since that night with Thor. Imposing himself on one of the richest, most powerful leaders of wizarding Britain—that was a true show of power, reducing Abraxas Malfoy to simpering for a guest in his own home.</p><p>“Antonin had a boy when I left. He died?” Tom looked between Edmund and Abraxas, neither of whom met his eyes. He decided to focus on Edmund. That man had never held up to Tom’s expectant stare.</p><p>True to form, Edmund broke within a minute. “He was a squib, Tom,” he said quietly, like the walls might hear of Dolohov’s shame if spoken too loudly.</p><p>The joke was on Edmund, really. The walls of Malfoy Manor had heard every scrap of gossip to be had. There was no point in hiding from them.</p><p>“Hm.” Tom paused for a moment, letting that distasteful subject pass. He had no interest in what had become of the boy. As much as squibs disgusted him, if only for how they reflected his own sordid family back to him, he didn’t truly want to think his supporters capable of filicide.</p><p>The Blacks probably were, of course, but he’d also never managed to fully ensnare that old family. Blood too muddy, no matter the lineage.</p><p>With a grimace, he moved on. “Surely, they are trying for another.”</p><p>“Yes, of course,” Abraxas nodded, “Though his wife has been unable to keep a pregnancy since the first. They may yet resort to adoption, or—well, Antonin could find another way, perhaps.”</p><p>“Unpleasant, but one does what one must,” Tom agreed sagely, as though he were the type of man to contemplate fatherhood. Edmund and Abraxas very intelligently let that remark pass. “So that leaves us with Thoros Nott. I understand his father attempted to arrange for a match before his passing, but Cantankerus was so old, and so orthodox, that I can imagine why he was unsuccessful.”</p><p>“Of course, Tom. The previous Nott patriarch would barely have known someone in the correct age range.” Edmund said this with the air of someone so eager to please that he was blind to the ramifications of that agreement.</p><p>This is where Tom wanted him, naturally, and he pounced on the opportunity. “I am so glad that we three are in accord on this issue. I expect that you will produce a list of suitable women within—let’s say a month. I am feeling quite generous, given this will be a happy occasion for Thoros.” Their faces were stoic as he dismissed them, but that was fine; Tom could be gleeful enough for the three of them. Thoros would be married, and Thoros would be safely contained, and Tom could continue on with Thoros however he wished without threat to his own standing once the man’s bachelorhood had unquestionably ended.</p>
<hr/><p>“I’m not marrying,” Thoros Nott said firmly, standing from his chair.</p><p>Of all the fucking absurd things for Tom to pull—a <i>marriage</i> contract, like he was an adolescent boy still learning his unforgiveables? </p><p>“Tom,” Thor began, noting Edmund Lestrange’s obvious wince and Abraxas’ more subtle tension, “I am a middle-aged man. You are not my father. What is this really about?”</p><p>“As I explained earlier,” Tom leaned back in his chair behind that obnoxiously-large wooden desk, which Thoros thought was almost definitely a Rosier family antique based on the worn crest above each hideously-clawed foot, “I wish for my supporters to secure their family legacies with heirs. You’re the only person who has made no progress on that front, and I’ve had Edmund and Abraxas compile a list of suitable potential brides to remedy the situation.” Tom smiled something mean, all sharp, white teeth, unfairly straight for a Muggle-raised orphan. It would have had more effect if Thoros hadn’t seen the original smile, back when they were still boys. </p><p>That had been an intimidating smile, a smile that promised terrors for everyone who had ever dared to take Tom Riddle at face value and find him lacking. Tom never truly understood that his power over the establishment laid with the circumstances of his life.</p><p>Rallying, Thoros pushed back as he paced Abraxas’ guest suite, his leather-soled shoes gliding along the wool carpet. “Tom.” A statement of intention. “I am not marrying.” A statement of purpose. “You’re being hypocritical. Antonin would rather die without a viable heir than dishonor his wife.” A cruel, but necessary, counter-argument. “If you continue to force this issue, I will withdraw my support and leave the Knights.” A promise, whether or not Tom would believe it.</p><p>Edmund and Abraxas looked equally stricken, this time, but it was Tom’s booming laughter that most caught Thoros’ attention. He didn’t believe it, then. The absolute fucking menace—of course he wouldn’t. Couldn’t possibly see what was plain as day. </p><p>Thoros’ affection for Tom was hardly a secret.</p><p>Maybe it was one of those things, like a thestral, that required a particular experience in order to recognize. That would make a perverse sort of sense: Tom, as a younger person, had hardly known how to identify affection, how to label it accurately. They’d dated for years, hadn’t they? Thoros had been the only person other than Tom keyed to the wards on Tom’s dingy old Knockturn Alley flat, back in his shopboy days. After they’d become exclusive, Tom had taken their monogamy quite seriously. He was more than a little possessive, at the time, chasing off anyone who became too friendly with Thoros at a party. And the affection, well—</p><p>What was love, if not days spent together, enjoying the other’s presence? What was love if not a connection with your partner’s mind, being in awe of and appreciating of their innermost self? </p><p>Tom really was too far gone if he could put all of that aside. Thoros hadn’t expected, after fifteen-odd years, that Tom still wanted—wanted <i>that</i> sort of thing, with him. His inability to let go of Tom Riddle was not Tom’s problem—or, if it was, it was simply a testament to the magnitude of Tom’s presence, not an indicator of personal responsibility for Thoros’ emotions. Tom probably had a string of people half in love with him scattered across the globe. Thoros did not affect an expectation of uniqueness.</p><p>Rather, he simply thought he was owed the basic respect of getting to choose his own romantic and sexual engagements, and that Tom Riddle, of all people, should have known that.</p><p>“You’re not even listening to me!” Tom seethed, cutting into Thoros’ train of thought.</p><p>Oh. He’d been saying something, probably justifying the unreasonable new demand. Well, then.</p><p>“Really,” Thoros drawled, barely flicking his eyes over to Tom. “I could accuse you of much the same. I’m not marrying a woman in order to produce an heir at your behest, and, frankly, I’m insulted that you thought it appropriate to ask.”</p><p>“I am not,” Tom stressed dangerously, “asking.”</p><p>“And I suppose I am not,” Thoros repeated in kind, “your supporter, at least until you pull your head out of your bloody arse.”</p><p>Gauntlet thrown, Thoros held his back straight. He was too old for petty shit like this. </p><p>Tom’s gorgeous blue eyes had always been his tell, and they, at least, were loyal to Thor now.</p><p>They showed hurt for just a second.</p><p>Tom stood firm, and they parted on bad terms soon after, but that second of honesty—that meant Thoros had gotten through. It might not change anything, but, well, Thoros could live off of a small victory.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He looked like a candle left too long in a sunny window, Tom thought about himself as he combed his hair futilely in front of the mirror in his suite’s lavish bathroom. The silly thing had been cursed to silence before he even gave it a moment to speak whatever ill-conceived insult to his appearance it could manage. Magic mirrors weren’t worth the effort of their enchantments.</p><p>So it fell to Tom to look at his own drooping eyelids, examine his own shiny skin and hair that no longer held a perfect curl. Dark magic, it had been said, ages a person; Tom thought that wasn’t quite accurate. Maybe the authors of all of those grimoires had started out ugly and assumed their future held only increasing ugliness. Tom had started out pretty, and he knew that what he saw now was not older than his natural age, really—just unbearably plain. God, he looked so plain.</p><p>In a moment he would eternally deny, he applied a glamour that eased his sunken cheeks, lifted his eyes, and put a bit of vigor back into his skin. He looked better, likely closer to how he should have looked at this age, but… he wasn’t ready to commit to wearing a glamour every day. If he got the job, he would have to put this on all the time and—oh, lord, would it be shameful for someone to catch on to <i>that</i> little ploy. Tom Riddle would not become some dowager countess caking his face so he could bury himself in denial. </p><p>Stripping the charm off, he turned away from the mirror. He looked presentable. That would have to be enough.</p><p>Of course, nothing would ever be enough for Albus Dumbledore.</p><p>The defense post would have been enough for Tom, he lied to himself. Even just seeing the old castle again, his first time back in nearly thirty years, resurfaced long-buried feelings of warmth and belonging that most would think Lord Voldemort incapable of experiencing. He would forever think fondly of that period of his youth, so much respite from a country at war, a war that devastated his city and overturned even the meager stability he had expected as an orphan. </p><p>London was another place he would always truly belong, no matter how he tried to get away from it. One cannot know a city at its lowest point and not forever carry the imprint of the place upon their soul; perhaps that was why he kept trying to rip it out.</p><p>Minerva McGonagall was a formidable witch, sent to greet him at the gate, and Tom immediately spotted her for the implicit threat that she was. Young enough and prim and exceedingly reserved, she was probably the sharpest creature he’d encountered in Britain. If Albus collected tools like this, and he was willing to show one off so blatantly, he was a verifiable obstacle. How positively droll, Tom thought, that Albus would be preparing for him already.</p><p>Or was it the case that Albus had been preparing for him since he’d applied the first time? Since the unfortunate fifth-year incident with the Chamber? Since he was sorted into Slytherin? Since he’d been a child of eleven, blindly opening up to the first adult that had shown him even the most pathetic semblance of acceptance?</p><p>Albus Dumbledore had never accepted him. How regrettable, that he’d encountered the man too young to notice that. Sometimes Tom wondered what it might have been like for Galatea or Horace to have been his introduction to magic—it wasn’t worth dwelling on what-ifs, but his mind did wander. He was getting maudlin in his middle-age.</p><p>The headmaster didn’t bother to meet them in the hall, opting instead to receive Tom in his office. It was a transparent show of power, all posturing and machismo and a testament to the unyielding demands of performative masculinity, even between two old queers. Tom could have laughed, felt the laughter bubbling hysterically in his gut like so much fizzy carbonation, but he bit his tongue and smiled the practiced amount and sat himself in the more austere visitor’s chair with grace.</p><p>“I heard that you had become headmaster. A worthy choice,” he opened, if only to set Dumbledore on edge. Sentence construction was so important, wasn’t it? Someone, surely, thought Albus was a worthy choice, and Tom was happy to imply agreement he would never feel.</p><p>It was only after they had settled into their drinks that Albus began patronizing in earnest.</p><p>“I know what you are known as,” the old goat said with his cruelest smile, “But to me, I’m afraid, you will always be Tom Riddle. It is one of the irritating things about old teachers. I am afraid that they never quite forget their charges’ youthful beginnings.”</p><p>Tom kept his composure as he was fed this load of rotting garbage. A former student who hadn’t kept up with Galatea might have bought the line. A man who wasn’t friends with the current head of the Board of Governors might be persuaded to accept this. However, Tom was neither of these things; he understood Albus’ show of power in the exceedingly-transparent manner in which it was intended.</p><p>Albus remembered Tom’s troubled childhood. This wasn’t <i>about</i> a name, though that was intended as an insult—he surely remembered the new names of former students who had married or otherwise changed their names—it was about Tom forever being the low-class Muggle-raised orphan with the audacity to want better than his station.</p><p>Oh, Tom knew he had far exceeded the boundaries of class discontent in his path through life. Murder was rarely on that menu. Did it much matter, though? Albus had no evidence to confirm the depths of Tom’s depravity; he should not be hanged on rumor and conjecture.</p><p>Skating past the slight by deflecting to Albus’ life choices, Tom eventually came back around to his request: “I have come to you to ask that you permit me to return to this castle, to teach.”</p><p>The Defense post had been through a spate of short-term instructors, he knew. No one had spent more than half a decade in the role following Galatea’s retirement, and—and he still wanted it <i>so badly</i>. It was a yearning that had never resolved, and the one personal slight he could never forgive Dippet. People said that teaching was a higher calling, a lifestyle more than a career, and though Tom knew employment was for putting food on the table and god didn’t exist, well, it had always been a bit true for him. He was born to teach. Maybe more accurately, he was born to pass on knowledge. Few had pushed magic as far as Lord Voldemort, and: “I could show and tell your students things they can gain from no other wizard.” Hogwarts would be a different school with a man like him on staff, a school where students no longer practiced rote memorization of the limited handful of spells in the stifling core curriculum.</p><p>“Rumors of your doings have reached your old school, Tom,” Albus Dumbledore warned him gravely. “I should be sorry to believe in half of them.”</p><p>Rumors and conjecture, again, absolute rubbish. “Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.” Tom appealed to Albus’ ego: “You must know this, Dumbledore.”</p><p>And that fool masquerading as an authority, he had the gall to ask, “You call it ‘greatness,’ what you have been doing, do you?”</p><p>“Certainly!” Tom answered, letting a bit of his nerve slip out, “I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed.”</p><p>“Of some kinds of magic,” Dumbledore interrupted in that self-sure way of his, “Of others, you remain—woefully ignorant.”</p><p>It wasn’t worth pretending with this man any longer. Tom sneered at him, letting his simmering power leak through his expression. “This old argument of yours, Albus. But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic.”</p><p>Dumbledore’s conception of love was akin to a pastor’s conception of the divine: ever-present yet taken on faith to exist. It was doubtful that the life Albus Dumbledore lived contained much of this love.</p><p>Hadn’t his lover, that ill-kept secret, been the purist scourge of continental Europe?</p><p>Hadn’t he been unable to move on, to let anyone else in following that early disappointment?</p><p>What could a man so closed to the core experience truly know of this love?</p><p>Tom knew love. Tom was born of the worst of love, whatever poorly-conceived obsession had led a desperate woman to see an escape from her circumstances in the form of a husband. Tom had love for his heritage, an ancestral piety built into his very body which allowed him to speak a sacred tongue passed down through magic. Tom had the love of his supporters, love born of genuine admiration as much as fear—and Tom knew, better than most, that it would be nigh-impossible to love a man of his stature, of <i>Albus’</i> stature, without some fear. </p><p>And when Tom was being honest with himself, rarely as that happened, he had the romantic love that Albus still couldn’t face, for as much as he professed its power. So, no, Tom had no need for Dumbledore’s cult of love, with its vague doctrines and suffocating shame. </p><p>“Perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places,” Dumbledore said, as though the issue was a fault in Tom’s perception.</p><p>“Well, then,” Tom seethed, “what better place to start my research than here, at Hogwarts?” Tom Riddle could demonstrate good faith, could make <i>compromises</i>, so he added: “I place myself and my talents at your <i>disposal</i>,” he flourished his hand, “I am yours to command.”</p><p>Albus hadn’t expected that, and the shock showed on his face.</p><p>Tom could almost laugh. This is what you get, old man, he thought bitterly, when you refuse to see students as capable of growth!</p><p>The next words out of Dumbledore’s mouth chilled Tom’s rising hysteria, though. “And what will become of those whom you command—the Death Eaters?”</p><p>Fucking <i>imbeciles</i>.</p><p>It would have been the younger generation. The Knights didn’t call themselves that name, but this new breed, they had seen the <i>morsmordre</i> and, well—simplified, to put it generously. Death Eaters. It was fine, if they wanted an identity, but to out and fucking <i>talk</i> about it, like some settled club, was decidedly not. He’d been back for, what, a few months? Returning late enough in the year to miss the wedding season, and without so much as a single platform to his party’s name… it was premature in the extreme.</p><p>“My friends,” as if he would call those youths true friends, “will carry on without me, I am sure.” Likely drinking and carousing and spending their inheritances frivolously, as their parents did before them. He had been young, once. He remembered his peers.</p><p>Dumbledore debated this choice of words and Tom countered, but Albus took him by surprise when he suggested that Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, and Dolohov were at the Hog’s Head tonight.</p><p>This was their drinking night, wasn’t it? And they knew he would be here, at Hogwarts, today—to come out this far for him, it was—</p><p>Had Dumbledore said <i>Nott</i>?</p><p>Thoros was here? Thoros, who hadn’t spoken to him since he’d withdrawn his support for the Knights? Thoros, did he know—</p><p>“Why have you come here tonight, surrounded by henchmen, to request a job we both know you do not want?” Albus cut across his thoughts, defining the world in his preferred image, as always.</p><p>“On the contrary, I want it very much.”</p><p>“You do not want to teach—what is it you’re after, Tom?” Albus jabbed again, unable to accept a contradiction to his blasted <i>rumors and conjectures</i>.</p><p>Tom was done. He said only, “If you do not want to give me a job—”</p><p>And Albus Dumbledore did not.</p><p>Albus Dumbledore had never. He had accepted this meeting simply to needle an old enemy, and what did it say that Albus Dumbledore had willingly defined a schoolboy as an enemy?</p><p>Not even a schoolboy, truly, because Dumbledore betrayed that this feud had started even earlier when he said: “The time is long gone when I could frighten you with a burning wardrobe and force you to make repayment for your crimes. But I wish I could, Tom… I wish I could.”</p><p>Tom, near the door to the office, fingered the handle of his wand in his restless discontent. He needed to ground himself, he needed—ah.</p><p>His friends were at the pub.</p><p>He turned and left, hastening to exit the castle. What had felt so nostalgic and welcoming on his approach, even with Albus’ guard dog as an escort, had turned oppressive following his reacquaintance with Dumbledore. He’d had plans to—but no, nothing could keep him in the castle any longer tonight.</p><p>Tom caught up to the crew at the Hog’s Head. The men wore sheepish expressions at having been caught, but after another round, even Thoros, though he wouldn’t talk to Tom directly, had loosened enough to brush his fingers along the back of Tom’s hand as he dealt a round of cards. </p><p>It was enough to take the edge off, to quiet the roiling discontent for one more night. He could be angry about Albus Dumbledore tomorrow, when he could channel it productively; tonight was for the people who loved Tom Riddle.</p>
<hr/><p>Late November saw Thoros still not talking to Tom, despite Tom’s best efforts—he’d sent Abraxas <i>and</i> Antonin, on separate occasions, to have a talk with Thor about the whole thing. Explain that marriage wasn’t so bad, and Lord Voldemort’s esteem was worth the sacrifice. It hadn’t worked, and Tom was left to stew in misery of his own making.</p><p>That was how Galatea Merrythought found him, at a Rosier party, worrying the cuff of his dress robe and standing alone by a side entrance to the main hall. She was resplendent in tailored emerald wool, and 25 years after her retirement, completely carefree. Her good-natured energy stood in stark contrast to Tom’s sullen anxiety. Looking him up and down, she visibly decided to skip the usual pleasantries.</p><p>“Are you still seeing Abraxas?” Galatea asked, her expression stern and disapproving. God bless the woman; she always let one know which answer was acceptable. It was the first time he’d seen her in a decade, and she was jumping straight back into troubleshooting his problems.</p><p>Tom shook his head lightly. “No. That wouldn’t be appropriate, would it?” he said in imitation of a man with a sense of propriety.</p><p>Galatea laughed at him, bold and unrestrained. “It was hardly appropriate when you were fucking him while his wife was pregnant, and yet.”</p><p>“And yet,” Tom mildly agreed. “I did move on when Lucius was born.”</p><p>She peered at him, her eyes still sharp and clear despite her age—so unlike his own. “You managed to keep that one much more quiet. Do I know him?” </p><p>“Oh,” Tom demurred, “I should think you do.” He was amused enough to let her guess.</p><p>“Antonin.”</p><p>That was fast. Fast and quite wrong. “No, but you’re not the first to—what is it about Antonin that makes you think… ?”</p><p>“Lad,” Galatea said in that way that meant someone has just asked a stupid question, “you’re drawn to the ones with confidence. Opposites attract, and all that.”</p><p>“That—” Tom stopped speaking, indignant. “You—it’s <i>Thoros</i>,” he settled on saying, hoping that would distract from her insulting implications. One didn’t exactly fight back against the woman who taught them the unforgivables. </p><p>“Thoros Nott?” She appeared to consider this, tapping her chin with spindly fingers in a manner that was so reminiscent of Muggle witch imagery, Tom had to stomp down an inappropriate giggle. He’d admired Galatea Merrythought since 11, and age had changed nothing.</p><p>“Mind, I’ve never understood the fairer sex,” she joked, “but I don’t see it for you. He always seemed like he was in your thrall. Abraxas, Antonin—those boys had personality.”</p><p>Personality—perhaps, he thought. They tended to fill a room, certainly, whether they intended to or not. Tom had learned that skill, knew how to turn it on or off, and used that to his advantage. He didn’t <i>lack confidence</i>, no matter what Galatea—and if he ever had, well. Who could blame him? He’d shown the world he was better. He still was. He was <i>unsurpassed</i> and he could <i>prove it</i>.</p><p>Oh. That was the insecurity, wasn’t it?</p><p>Thor. Back to Thor. Thoros was kinder than most of the Slytherin boys, and steadfastly academic in spite of its lameness, so compared to an aggressively masculine Antonin, he could understand… but Thoros was the only one to walk away from the Knights after joining, and in order to preserve his own sense of pride, at that.</p><p>Oh. He had insulted him, hadn’t he?</p><p>“Galatea,” Tom said quietly, “you never truly stop teaching.”</p><p>“If it’s a night for you learning,” she scoffed, “you reek of the dark arts. Fix that up, Tom. A body can’t keep functioning for long, the way you push yours.”</p><p>“I—”</p><p>“No,” she interrupted, “No, I do not want you to confirm whatever idiocy brilliant young men fool around with. I enjoy my plausible deniability very much. Fix it so I never have to know.”</p><p>Tom huffed in annoyance. Settling his eyes across the room, he said, “Galatea, I think your wife is looking for you.” She could go condescend to someone else if she was going to be so obnoxiously correct about everything.</p><p>“She can wait!” Galatea perked right up, spying something else. “Horace is seeming much too comfortable tonight; I simply must go needle him about when he’s retiring,” and she shot off with a verve Tom had never possessed. </p><p>Then Thoros Nott rounded the corner, deep in conversation with Mulciber and Dolohov, and Tom dove behind a drapery and into the hallway.</p><p>“Well that was—” Thoros blinked and cut himself off once they’d crossed over to the other side of the hall. </p><p>“You’ve got Tom Riddle running from you, Thor,” Antonin laughed. “Never thought I’d see the day. That man kisses Adrienne Malfoy’s hand just to make her frown.”</p><p>“Primarily,” Thoros said, “I’m interested in confirming that you both saw the same thing. Tom just—he hid behind a drapery?”</p><p>Mulciber smirked cruelly, scratching at his lip. “Scurried, more like. Like a rat.”</p><p>“Might not want to repeat that one, mate,” Antonin chided lightly, too amused to really care. “You really walked away, then? You’re not a Knight anymore?” Everyone was fearless in a setting like this, with a hundred old pureblood families around, where Tom Riddle was the only new blood invited to join without a marriage contract in decades. Leaving the Knights almost seemed plausible.</p><p>Thoros allowed a nonchalant shrug, raising one shoulder like only Rosier or Black—Orion, Cygnus was a knob—had ever pulled off. “I’m not marrying some girl twenty years my junior for Tom’s peace of mind, as though it would help anything.”</p><p>“I’d do it,” Mulciber chimed in as Antonin rolled his eyes. </p><p>“You’ve always been disgusting,” Dolohov said with a dismissive snap. </p><p>“No,” Mulciber argued back, “Disgusting is that Greyback cad Tom’s met with. He bites children, Antonin. All <i>I’m</i> saying is if I were in Thoros’ position, a single man with Tom offering me a pick of eligible pureblood women, I’d think that was a real sweet deal.”</p><p>Thoros gestured with his hands. “Right, so, in the hierarchy of disgusting, it’s Greyback at the bottom,” he flattened his right hand, slashing at the air in front of his waist, “and you somewhere further up?” He placed his left hand in the air above his right. </p><p>Antonin adjusted the distance, grabbing Thor’s wrist so his hands were closer together. “More like this, I think.”</p><p>“We can’t all marry the love of our life,” Mulciber said with a sour look. “Betty’s fine, as wives go, but we’re not like you and Irina, is all I’m saying. I’m not as bad as Abraxas. I’m just—if I <i>were</i> unmarried, well. I’d consider it.”</p><p>“Of course.” Antonin slid his hand in the narrow space between Thoros’. “Abraxas Malfoy, less disgusting than Fenrir Greyback, more than Elias Mulciber. I think we’ve got our ranking, boys.” He withdrew his hand and slapped Thoros on the back, startling him forward a step.</p><p>“Now that that’s settled,” Thoros scowled, righting his robes, “I still think it’s absurd. Aside from, well—” all three men glossed over the true motivation for Thor’s rejection, “It would be one of our lot’s daughters. I’m not looking to be a schoolmate’s son-in-law.”</p><p>“It’s hard enough to be the father-in-law,” Edmund Lestrange interrupted their little group, wandering over with a haunted look in his eye. “Roddy’s happy, and that’s what matters, but—Cygnus, really.”</p><p>“Cygnus is a knob,” Dolohov said while he nodded in greeting. </p><p>“At least he’s married to Dru,” Mulciber consoled. “Imagine being the poor sod whose kid marries Sirius or Regulus Black.”</p><p>“Does Orion even go home, these days? I caught him sleeping in his office, once,” Thoros mused.</p><p>“I gave him my guest suite one time, and,” Lestrange looked around before huddling close to the trio, “Wals threatened to have her brother call off the betrothal.”</p><p>“He wouldn’t,” Mulciber said, completely hooked on the story, as if there was any mystery as to how it ended. They’d all sat through Rodolphus’ wedding last spring. Elias was a good friend, Thoros thought.</p><p>“He might have!” Lestrange exclaimed in a whisper, “She’s Lady Black. And Roddy and Bella were such a good match, well—I never did harbor Orion again.”</p><p>“Don’t marry your cousin,” Antonin suggested. He had never understood this grotesque English tradition, being a product of a father who’d immigrated to find a wife. Thoros wished he could claim there’d been no cousin-marriages in the recent generations on his family tree.</p><p>At least he would never put himself in that situation.</p><p>“Edmund!”</p><p>Lestrange turned white. “Oh, Salazar.”</p><p>“Edmund, I haven’t seen you all night, and Rodolphus and I have great news!” Bellatrix Lestrange was a pretty, energetic, and absolutely terrifying young witch in the Black tradition, like Walburga before her. Bless Lestrange for becoming the father-in-law so that others might not have to.</p><p>“Bella, love,” Rodolphus Lestrange swept up behind her, more composed than his father could ever hope to be. That was how one married a Black witch. Even in his early twenties, the man carried himself with the bearing of a king, and was handsome enough to rival the best of men. Edmund had never looked like that. </p><p>The young man continued speaking once he’d caught up to his wife. “Father will think you’re announcing a pregnancy, if you say it like that.”</p><p>Were youths always so formal? Thoros supposed this was the true sign that he’d gotten old; his presence constituted ‘mixed company.’</p><p>“Right, then, not a pregnancy.” Edmund looked a little relieved, honestly. Mid-forties was a bit young to start calling oneself a grandparent. “What, er, is your news, Bella, my dear?”</p><p>Thoros held back a laugh. Antonin did not. The children didn’t seem to notice. </p><p>“Lord Voldemort!” She delivered the name like it was something sacred and the older men shifted or coughed around her. Bellatrix hadn’t existed when Tom Marvolo Riddle had been a clever kid with too much time in History of Magic. She wouldn’t find the name silly at all. “Our lord,” and wasn’t that presumption a riot, “entrusted me with an object of utmost importance! An object of mortal significance! An artifact that I alone can keep safe!” She looked like she believed all that, too, poor thing.</p><p>“It speaks to me in his voice,” she rambled, and though most of the others had started to tune her out, too used to the self-obsession of the Blacks, Thoros perked back up. Speaks to her? That wasn’t—a good thing. Either she was truly mad, or— “He made it, he said, our lord made it to protect himself, and I’m to keep it safe!”</p><p>“Lovely news, dear,” Edmund said absently. Lestrange family dinners must be quite awful, if he could brush this off. “Is that what you wanted to share?”</p><p>“Oh! No, I had a request,” she corrected herself immediately. “Rodolphus suggested, and I think it’s a fantastic plan,” she looked at her husband adoringly and he smiled back, “that we put it in the Lestrange family vault. It would be so safe at Gringotts.”</p><p>“Er, sure, Bella,” Edmund agreed. “Rod, you can arrange for that, if that’s all.”</p><p>Dolohov and Mulciber had started talking about something else, and Lestrange was pulled, reluctantly, into an inane discussion of logistics by his son and daughter-in-law, which left Thoros to drift until he found a table where he could sit and have a think.</p><p>Creating a magical artifact that was imbued with one’s voice—more generally, their essence—for some nebulous protection, sounded an awful lot like the magic Tom would mess around with. Thoros just hadn’t thought he was so stupid as to actually try it in real life.</p><p>A woman cut into his stewing. “Thoros, does your castle still have those lovely blue geraniums?” Ah, fuck, Landry. She knew everyone’s ancestral gardens by heart, and now was not the time for—</p><p>Oh dear. Tom was sitting at the next table over, looking much too aware of Thoros. Geraniums it was, then.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You gave part of your soul to Bellatrix Lestrange!” Thoros screamed as he entered the guest suite at Malfoy Manor, his hands tearing at his hair. “Have you gone mad?”</p><p>“Hello, Thoros,” Tom answered coolly. He looked as unruffled as ever, which was to say, he looked like a carefully-contained anxious mess that was far too intimidatingly powerful for anyone to call out. “It’s been a while. Won’t you sit?”</p><p>Thoros rolled his eyes and ignored the entreaty, continuing to pace on those Malfoy wool carpets. Perhaps he could wear them down enough that Abraxas would have to pay to have them redone; perhaps he could make this argument loud enough that Abraxas would finally locate his own balls and kick Tom out of his house.</p><p>Right. Like that would happen.</p><p>“I can’t even <i>begin</i> to discuss the horcrux issue—that’s not the only one, is it? Is that what you did with your father? You’re a fucking <i>animal</i>, Tom—” Tom’s eyes flashed that dangerous, grotesque red, but Thoros was in too deep to notice, “—but then you went and gave it to a teenage girl!”</p><p>It was Tom’s turn to scoff. “That’s highly unfair of you. Bellatrix is a capable witch, and if you demean her based on gender, I’ll ask you to leave, as much as I’m enjoying our reunion.”</p><p>“Fine!” Thoros threw up his hands. “She is a person barely past her own adolescence. She is closer to being a child than anyone entrusted with <i>part of your soul</i> has any right to be!” It was bloody insane that Tom would even begin to defend this. </p><p>Then again, Tom had been the one to make the decision. No matter how laughably stupid, Tom would defend his own decisions to—well, to someone else’s death, at least.</p><p>Not Thoros’ death, not today.</p><p>“Tom—no, you are not my lord, I am still not your supporter, I’m here as a <i>friend</i>,” Thoros stressed, watching Tom near delirious giggles at the naked use of the label, manic light glinting red in his eyes, “does she even know what she’s got? I might be particularly qualified, but I’m hardly the only wizard out there who knows what a horcrux smells like.”</p><p>“You got close enough to smell it?” Tom cocked his head to the side, in a bird-like fashion, and Thoros couldn’t tell if he was joking. </p><p>“I don’t mean literally!” Bloody hell. “She was—she was bragging about it, at the party last week, you know the one because I swear you dove behind a drapery when I walked by—”</p><p>Tom shot in, leveling his own accusation. “You talked to Landry Parkinson about geranium cultivation for ten minutes to avoid me at the next table over. She put her hand on your arm, Thoros!”</p><p>“You timed that?”</p><p>“If she made it to fifteen minutes, I was going to hex her arm off.” Tom leaned back with a smile, as though this was something of which he should be proud.</p><p>“You are mad,” Thoros concluded. “Sorry for wasting your time, I suppose. Enjoy your mental decline. Try giving out your horcruxes as wedding presents; Lucius will be married in the next few years and you shouldn’t miss the opportunity.” He spun to leave, but Tom was on his feet in a flash, his bony hand closing around Thor’s shoulder.</p><p>It shouldn’t have been such a comfort, to feel Lord Voldemort manhandling him, and yet it was.</p><p>Thoros allowed himself to be spun around, though he could have physically stopped the other man. Tom hadn’t filled back out. He doubtless wasn’t eating enough, and who in his life would feel able to point it out? Tom had never been good at looking after himself for his own sake. He was always so preoccupied with—well, in Thoros’ mind, mostly with these sorts of absurdities. He was so brilliant, and yet he had no sense of when to keep something to the realm of the theoretical.</p><p>With a sigh less reluctant than it should have been, Thoros asked, “What is it, Tom?”</p><p>“Bellatrix is my best,” he said, in a voice so plaintive that Thoros was almost moved to take up his free hand.</p><p>Almost. “Your best needs to be more than someone who is 21 years old, no matter how promising she might be. Do you remember that age?”</p><p>Tom finally let his hand drop from Thoros’ shoulder. “I was formidable,” he asserted.</p><p>Thoros balked. “We were children.”</p><p>“I had made two horcruxes.”</p><p>That was disturbing, but it only made Thoros’ next argument more hilarious. “You nearly burned down your flat trying to bake a cake to impress Abraxas, <i>a man who does not touch sugar</i>.”</p><p>A genuine smile threatened to break across Tom’s face even as he said, “I was a young man with a healthy sex drive, even if the object of that drive was… regrettable. Also, I recall that you and Rosier enjoyed that cake just fine.”</p><p>“You admit you were young!” Thoros laughed, celebrating his victory. “It was a good cake. Do you still bake?”</p><p>Tom did smile, now. “Do I look like a man who bakes, Thor?”</p><p>“You never much did.” </p><p>“Would you like to stay a while?” Tom asked, eyes shifting restlessly to the door that led to his bedroom. Thoros hardly needed that clue to understand his meaning.</p><p>“Are you still terrified of publicly associating with an unmarried man?” If his tone was slightly cruel—he hadn’t tried to hold it in at all. He took a step back from Tom as he spoke, finding the solid bulk of a bureau and leaning against it, his hands wrapped around the edge of its polished top.</p><p>“It’s not the homosexuality that causes an issue,” Tom began as Thoros cut him off.</p><p>“That is not,” he said, his voice coming out with an undercurrent of strain, “the reassurance that you think it to be.”</p><p>Tom’s eyes were cold and bluer than they had been in at least a decade. “It should be. That doesn’t come easily to those of us raised into Muggle society.”</p><p>“You’re actually invoking your Muggle heritage to make a point, Tom?”</p><p>“That should tell you how seriously I take the issue!” Tom thundered, throwing an arm out to partially cage Thoros against the bureau. He leaned into Thor’s space, eyes pinning the taller man in place more firmly than explicit threats ever would. This was the Tom of their youth, all teeth and glares and mettle, hardened by whatever unspeakable horrors of his childhood he wore close to the skin, like a hair shirt.</p><p>This was the Tom that Thor would follow to the ends of the Earth.</p><p>He leaned forward, meeting Tom’s blue, blue eyes. He was barely breathing, so close to the other man, but he could smell him—strong and clear and achingly familiar, even with years spent apart.</p><p>“You used to say you wanted to upend society, you know,” Thoros said quietly, watching Tom’s eyes flutter at their proximity. His own heart was racing, so near the other man. “Yet you’re as terrified of trust as Albus Dumbledore or any of his kind.” Thor pulled back abruptly, and he could have sworn that Tom swayed minutely as he withdrew.</p><p>“I’m not part of this movement as long as you think I’m a liability,” he closed, walking to the door of the suite in which Tom was squatting. </p><p>“You came here to warn me!” Tom protested, retreating behind that awful old desk, an unsightly slab of wood that put question to reverence for antiques if ever there was one. Abraxas had truly pulled one over on Tom with that furniture arrangement.</p><p>“You’re still my friend, Tom. This was about your <i>soul</i>.”</p><p>“My soul or your jealousy?” Tom sneered, but it was a weak argument and both men knew it. As though a pretty young woman would ever cause a rift between them. No, Bellatrix’s comeliness was wasted on her new master, regardless of how he encouraged her. </p><p>Thoros left without bothering to find a reply.</p>
<hr/><p>“No.”</p><p>Thoros crossed his arms and stared down the very unwelcome sight in front of him. Only a week had passed since their last meeting. “No, Tom, this is my <i>business</i>, you can’t just make an appointment through someone else and accost me here. Get out.”</p><p>Tom ignored all of this and sat elegantly in the visitor’s chair across from Thor’s desk. The bloody nuisance might not be pretty, anymore, but he still knew how to move. Thoros began considering his options.</p><p>Should he call for his secretary?</p><p>“I am here on business, Thor. I’m offended you would assume I’d impose on your professional life for anything less.”</p><p>No, she wouldn’t help him oust Tom Riddle; she was too easily charmed. And he wasn’t ready to call the aurors for something like this. Should he set an ultimatum, get out or I’ll make you leave?</p><p>“I have an inquiry that requires a Master of Runes, and I happened to know the most talented ritualist and runes expert in the western hemisphere.”</p><p>No, Tom had been able to lay Thor out on his arse since they were children. He’d lose any contest if it actually came to a duel. He could activate the wards… those would work—</p><p>“Wait,” Thoros blurted out, “when did you upgrade me to best of the west?”</p><p>“About five years ago, when your competition in Germany found an unfortunate end,” Tom replied, picking a butter mint out of Thor’s candy dish. </p><p>“Those are for paying customers,” Thoros objected. The comment about his competition wasn’t worth engaging. What was done was done.</p><p>“Which I am trying to become,” Tom said, unwrapping the mint and popping it in his mouth. He sucked on the candy for a minute, his lips pursed and distractingly pink in the midday light.</p><p>Thoros cleared his head with a shake. “You don’t have the money.”</p><p>“You don’t know that,” Tom contested with a frown, his brow wrinkling in that endearingly-familiar way it always did when anyone tried to deny him something.</p><p>“I do know that, because whatever you say you can pay, I’ll double it until you cannot.” Thoros smirked. Tom always thought he was the only wizard around who understood math or logic; one did not become a talented ritualist without figuring their way around a few riddles.</p><p>“Then I must appeal to your better nature, Thor,” Tom relented, leaning forward to place a hand on the edge of Thoros’ desk. Thor looked at it warily. Hands were trouble. “I’ve been thinking—”</p><p>“That does not settle my mind,” Thor interrupted harshly, pushing slightly back from his desk and planting both of his feet solidly on the ground, should something happen.</p><p>“If you’re quite done,” Tom glared, pulling his hand back to his own space. Thoros stayed silent. “I have been thinking about what you said. And Galatea, as well. You’ve been avoiding me—”</p><p>“No more than you me,” Thoros interrupted again, frowning.</p><p>“You have been avoiding me so I did not get the chance to tell you,” Tom repeated himself as though Thor hadn’t spoken, “that Galatea and I talked at the party, and she, well. She could tell that I had done something… idiotic, she called it,” Tom admitted, and Thoros grinned.</p><p>“Called you out, did she?”</p><p>Tom rolled his eyes and snatched another butter mint. “She called me brilliant in the same breath, so save your gloating. Anyway, Abraxas is good for the money, so will you take the job?”</p><p>Thoros propped his elbow on the arm of his desk chair and leaned into his hand. He stared at Tom long enough to make the other man blink. That was a victory. “I don’t want money for what I think you’ll ask of me.”</p><p>Tom smiled, but the smile was uncertain of its place on his face. He didn’t show his teeth. “Great,” he paused, “You’re accepting my business? Because I must tell you, it’s a big problem. We’ll have to work together quite closely. I’ve got some ideas to start, but of course, your practical experience will be key, and I really want to start soon. Maybe I’ve become more risk averse as I’ve gotten older,” Tom said, looking much too proud of his supposed maturity to be taken seriously, “but if I have opened myself to unnecessary risk—and I am inclined to respect Galatea’s opinion—I would like to remedy that.”</p><p>“Tom, do you understand that I am upset with you?” Thoros asked bluntly, digging the nails of his free hand into the wool of his trousers. </p><p>“I understand that you’re upset with me,” Tom parroted like a dutiful student. He always had been so good at charming authority, except his hair had less bounce, and his face showed the beard shadow of a grown man, not the smooth peachiness of a young adult.</p><p>Of course, Thoros’ traitorous mind whispered, he’d never loved Tom for his looks.</p><p>Aloud, he said: “And so you also know that I need you to apologize before I can move on from that.”</p><p>“Sure,” Tom agreed easily. “I am sorry.”</p><p>“Are you?”</p><p>“Of course. I upset you, and I would rather you’re not upset with me, and I’m sorry about all that,” Tom said with such an earnest expression, eyes wide and mouth parted, that it would have been sweet, coming from a different person. From Tom, it sounded automatic.</p><p>Soulless, one might even say, if one allowed themself to be maudlin. Thoros was not yet that far gone.</p><p>He sighed and began to explain, keeping a steady gaze on Tom. “It’s not a proper apology if you’re just sorry for how your actions negatively impacted you. No, I heard you—you know you upset me, but do you really know why?”</p><p>“I insulted you. That’s the only reason you would walk away from the Knights,” Tom said in the manner of someone reciting a textbook. Again: endearing words, if Thoros ignored that this really should have been a much more emotional conversation.</p><p>“Have Abraxas book you another meeting with me when you can explain why your action was so insulting, Tom.” With that, Thoros pushed up from his seat and crossed around his desk, as though this really had been just any client meeting. “I have another appointment arriving shortly,” this was a lie, “so I’ll see you out. Here, take a mint.”</p>
<hr/><p>“Abraxas,” Tom stated his name as a demand, “I need your advice.”</p><p>Abraxas looked tired of being summoned to his own guest suite. Or, rather, he looked as flawlessly put-together as ever, but there was a slight tightening around his eyes, a faintly pinched line between his brows, that only someone who had known the man as intimately as Tom had might notice. Or the man’s wife. She existed, Tom supposed.</p><p>As much as Tom enjoyed annoying Abraxas, he did have a purpose to this meeting. “Thoros Nott,” he introduced as though giving a formal presentation, which perhaps this was, “is upset with me because I insulted him when I gave him his last set of orders for the Knights.”</p><p>“Yes, I recall,” Abraxas said neutrally. Ah, so the slippery bastard did have an opinion on the matter.</p><p>“You know me quite well, of course,” and Abraxas echoed ‘of course’ back to him, “and you know something about recovering from terrible mistakes in relationships.” It was always delightful to watch Abraxas go even paler than usual. He turned faintly yellow, more reflection of ambient light than man, when he was really embarrassed. “So please, tell me how I determine what he found insulting.”</p><p>He allowed Abraxas a minute to compose himself before speaking. Politeness was a virtue. </p><p>“Well, then,” the blond said with perfect diction, a sure tell that he was holding something back, “perhaps it’s best if you start with your read of the situation.”</p><p>“Very well,” Tom relaxed into the role of the analytical student, “I suggested—don’t look at me like that, fine, <i>asked</i> Thoros to pick a wife for the good of his family line, as a Knight. I had solid reasons for this: his house shouldn’t die out, he should have a child that continues to support our Knights, just like you have with Lucius or Rosier has through Evan. It’s a way of showing support, really, and it’s not like I ever asked him to be <i>loyal</i>. Rather the opposite, hopefully…” Abraxas waved his hand to motion Tom on. “Right. We’ve all made choices with tradeoffs. I spent a year in Albania with no one but snakes for company. I worked in an antiques shop for over a decade. I understand tradeoffs, Abraxas. They are not easy choices, but we make them for our own long-term benefit, and Thoros, of all people, must know that. He was always the smartest of you lot.”</p><p>Abraxas didn’t bother being offended.</p><p>“So where that leaves me, then, is that Thor is upset and was insulted that I asked him to make a choice he hadn’t wanted to make, though we all should understand that we’ll have to make these sorts of choices. I thought he would have come around by now, though. I didn’t think he was this prideful.”</p><p>“Thoros is one of the least prideful men we know,” Abraxas said, raising both of his perfectly-groomed eyebrows. “Any conclusion that relies on him being too proud to admit his mistakes is wrong.”</p><p>“In other words,” Tom hissed, “you think I am wrong.”</p><p>“Do you need me to use the words? Tom. You are wrong.”</p><p>“You insolent twit!”</p><p>Abraxas rolled his eyes. “Tom Riddle. We are in our <i>forties</i>. You insult me as though I’m a misbehaving child again and I’ll turn you out of this suite.” He stretched and shifted in his chair, muttering, “If you must insult me, make it worthwhile.”</p><p>Tom glared at the sleeve of his brocade silk housecoat. “Why am I wrong, then?”</p><p>“You’re wrong,” Abraxas stressed, losing that sharp diction as he embraced honesty, “because you didn’t insult Thoros’ pride. You didn’t give him a choice at all.”</p><p>“You and Lestrange assured me that you’d found multiple suitable wives,” Tom accused, feeling quite put-out. He’d spent so much effort—well, asked others to exert their efforts—ensuring that Thoros would have options. The Nott patriarch should get to make a house alliance as he saw fit.</p><p>Now Abraxas was truly exasperated, running a hand through his pristine hair, and it would have been amusing if Tom didn’t need to understand <i>why</i> quite so badly. “It’s not—you didn’t let him choose <i>whether</i> to marry. He and I differ on this issue, to say the very least,” and Abraxas did look quite dissatisfied at the thought of Thor’s life choices, “but a man of his stature doesn’t make it to our age without a wife by accident. Merlin, Tom!” Abraxas actually threw his hand in the air, “He’s gone on you, been gone for years, and if he ever did decide to settle with some other partner, it would be a man closer to our own age. You <i>know</i> this.”</p><p>“You and I slept together for years after your marriage,” Tom huffed as he argued back. “His wife would be nothing more than a political decision.”</p><p>“And our affair would have cost me my marriage if I hadn’t used an iron-clad bond,” Abraxas said with a frown. “You never really bothered to see the damage that caused. No, don’t start with me—it was my choice, I’m not blaming you,” Tom settled back into his chair, “Adrienne and I took years to find our balance after that, and I still worry that I didn’t give Lucius the childhood he deserved. I know you don’t care about this, Tom,” and truly, Tom did not, had never bothered much with the concept of young children as anything other than needy little things, “but for those of us with more conventional life goals, marriage is quite a large request to make.”</p><p>Tom scoffed at this. “You old bloodlines arrange this shit,” he swore, making Abraxas sit up straighter in surprise. “You have cousin-marriages. You set up betrothals for children and adolescents, arranged without their input. You marry for alliances, not a romantic notion of love. You work to produce an heir, rather than decide to <i>build a family</i> or whatever trite nonsense the Muggles call it these days. Marriage is the <i>standard</i> request to make.”</p><p>“Not for you. That’s not your role in our lives,” Abraxas argued with the slightest waver in his voice.</p><p>“His father failed, and is dead.”</p><p>“And do you think Thoros wants to see you in a paternal role?”</p><p>Well. That was unsettling. “No… I suppose not.”</p><p>“Aside from that,” Abraxas said, “which is disgusting, and don’t think I haven’t realized you’ve had sex with him since you returned—you really thought that was private, Tom? You flooed out of my <i>home</i>. Aside from the wrongness of your imposition into Thor’s life, is this even truly about Thor’s bachelorhood?”</p><p>“What are you implying, Abraxas?” Tom asked threateningly, with his darkest stare fixed on the other man.</p><p>It might have worked, even, if Abraxas hadn’t spent the past half hour attempting to teach Tom how to access his own humanity. As it was, Abraxas simply soldiered on with his answer. “I am stating, not implying, that you fucked an old lover, had some sort of crisis of identity following your first fuck in ages, and decided to make it Thoros Nott’s problem.”</p><p>“Well.” Tom looked at Abraxas blankly. What even was there to say to that?</p><p>“Have a think on it, Tom. You’re a smart lad,” Abraxas said with a touch of irony as he stood up to leave, “you’ll find something to say to him to repair the relationship. Or maybe you’ll take the easier path and murder us all. When you figure it out… call Antonin. I’ve paid my dues.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A room of his friends always looked empty without Thoros. </p><p>Pushing that worry aside, Tom stood up to catch everyone’s attention. Among these men, he cut an imposing figure: tall, broad, and though tainted by magic, not worn down by the mundane stresses of life. “Thank you, my Knights, for making time tonight.” A few raised their glasses to him. “As you well know, I’ve always planned to build on this group’s foundation to shape wizarding society, and with the successful conclusion of my travels abroad, I feel particularly magically potent. I want to strategize now, and I want your input. What is this group, to you?”</p><p>Tom took his seat once again, picking up his drink to let the men have time to mull it over. Unsurprisingly, Abraxas Malfoy was the first to open the floor. He always enjoyed attention.</p><p>“Thank you, my lord,” he said, explicitly acknowledging Tom’s position. He turned his limpid gaze to the rest of the room. “I speak for all of us when I say that we’re glad to count you as a friend and thought leader. Tom, you’ve been an invaluable person in this group; I shudder to think what our generation would have been if you hadn’t shown up at Hogwarts.” Nervous laughter echoed among the men; too many were remembering just <i>how</i> he’d looked when he showed up at Hogwarts. “I think many of us also consider this to have been a successful effort. I am, of course,” he waved his hand imperiously to indicate himself, “the head of the Hogwarts Board of Governors. In this room we have multiple Ministry department heads,” Lestrange and Avery nodded here, “we have successful business owners,” Dolohov and Rosier tipped their drinks toward Tom, “and so much more. When you consider our children, we’re raising the next generation of the wizarding elite. You have us, and we have power.”</p><p>It was not, precisely, the power Tom Riddle had envisioned as a boy. It was—well, the power of the men in this room was undeniable, even if not absolute, but it was theirs.</p><p>“Right, you weren’t in the country for this, but Abraxas organized all of us with Wizengamot seats to vote out Nobby Leach as Minister a couple years back,” Rosier said in response, as a show of support. “That man had been making a mess of things, and was much too close to old Dumbledore. Good work on that, Malfoy.”</p><p>“Jenkins isn’t much better,” Lestrange grumbled, but everyone in the room knew Lestrange had been involved in the squib issue and was personally sour about Minister Jenkins. Dolohov, Tom observed, seemed to bristle a bit at the mention; he must have a personal stake in the matter, given his son.</p><p>Mulciber shifted in his seat before saying, “I like the company,” desperate to move away from Lestrange’s foul mood.</p><p>Avery picked it right up. “Not a better crowd than you lot,” he agreed. “You all helped when my son was born; I was a mess in his first year, remember?”</p><p>“And it’s nice to have a space without the Black family poking in,” Rosier nodded, “Orion’s okay, but Cygnus is a knob. Why isn’t Orion a part of this, again?”</p><p>“Too young,” Dolohov said. “He was just a kid when most of us had graduated.”</p><p>“We could invite him now,” Mulciber suggested.</p><p>“Do we want Walburga at the family events, though?” someone asked, and this kicked off a debate about the merits of helping Orion versus asking their wives to endure Walburga. Antonin was surprisingly in favor; he wagered that Irina could cut old Wally down to size. Everyone in the room agreed they were glad they had no daughters in the correct age range to marry her sons.</p><p>What quickly became apparent was that none of the men were all that interested in the knowledge gained from Tom’s ten-year tenure abroad. He tried to engage a subset of the group on the topic of his magic, on theory and craft and breaking new ground for spellwork, but the men nearby were patently uninterested. “I’ve just had another son,” Rosier said, and some of the others hummed in sympathy, “I thought I was nearly done with this but now I have another eighteen years with a child in the house. What use have I for an improved disemboweling curse?”</p><p>Tom set his sights on his forthcoming meeting with their older children. If the fathers were powerful but complacent, the children would turn out to be quite the opposite.</p><p>A dozen bright young eyes fixed on Tom when he entered the parlor Abraxas had lent him for the occasion, at least half of which were… younger than he’d expected.</p><p>“Are those Orion’s sons?” he asked no one in particular.</p><p>The bigger one looked exceptionally peeved to be here.</p><p>“I told you we shouldn’t have brought them,” Bellatrix hissed at a girl who looked quite like her while her youngest sister, Narcissa, provided a proper answer: “Mother, Father, and Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion were occupied today and asked us to watch our cousins, my lord.” She tilted her head demurely downward, suggesting perfect subservience. Oh, this one was good. “We thought it best not to leave them unsupervised, as Mummy and Aunt Wally would be so upset.” Deviously good, he revised his estimation, to invoke Walburga again while infantilizing herself. </p><p>“Right, then.” Tom sat himself in the remaining open seat, next to the youngest Black son, on a sofa. Tom and the boy looked at each other for a minute; he was too young for Tom to have known as a baby. Must’ve been born while he was out of the country. </p><p>The boy blinked and stuck out his hand like a proper young lad. Tom shook it, quietly amused. “Regulus Black, sir. The nasty one is my brother, Sirius.” Lovely.</p><p>Tom took a quick headcount. All five Blacks, both Lestrange brothers, Lucius Malfoy with a very untoward arm around Narcissa’s waist, Juniors Avery, Mulciber, and Rosier, and a set of twins had tagged along, the Carrows, whose parents were slightly older than Tom. They ranged in age from… nine-ish, if he judged his sofa companion correctly, to early 20s. </p><p>“Shall we start?” he asked, never feeling his age more.</p><p>Only the Lestrange trio looked remotely focused on him. The young Malfoy heir seemed interested in maximizing his use of time spent without parental supervision, at least two of the Blacks seemed deeply uncomfortable with their general existence, and most of the rest just appeared bored. It was not a cheering way to begin.</p><p>“As you know,” he really had no idea whether they knew, “your parents are among my friends.”</p><p>Beside him, Regulus Black raised his hand.</p><p>Tom stared at him but the boy did not speak. “Er.” He paused. “Yes, Regulus. You have something to say?”</p><p>“Sir.” Regulus lowered his hand primly. “My parents aren’t your friends, sir, but I think they should be.”</p><p>Tom wanted to leave. A room full of <i>children</i>, what had he been thinking? </p><p>He put his hand on his knee, gripped it hard, and breathed. He’d needed the cup back from Bellatrix anyway, and he would not be cowed by minors. He could do this.</p><p>“Thank you for that contribution, Regulus,” he said, hesitantly clapping the boy on his shoulder once. Bellatrix beamed at her cousin; Sirius looked shocked. “Okay, continuing on, your parents and I have a longstanding affiliation, and I realize that many of you are aligning yourself with this pre-existing group,” at least half of the room looked completely lost, and Tom questioned his existence mid-sentence, “and I know that you’re referring to yourself as the Death Eaters, and what I mean to ask is—what is this group, to you?”</p><p>“I’m not a Death Eater,” the middle Black sister said quickly. Narcissa launched herself at her sister to shut her up; Bellatrix’s glare was arguably more effective. It didn’t really matter to Tom either way.</p><p>“Forgive my sister, my lord!” Bellatrix hastily apologized. “She means, well—she—she’s still in school.”</p><p>Rabastan immediately objected: “I’m still in school.”</p><p>“You’re a boy,” Bellatrix hissed, like that justified anything. “My lord,” even Tom was getting tired of the title now, “we want what you want: an end to the erosion of our culture and our families.” Oh. That was, um. Not what he had expected.</p><p>Bellatrix took his silence for agreement and continued speaking. “The mudbloods and half-breeds that come into <i>our</i> world and refuse to live by <i>our</i> norms—that ask why there aren’t <i>cinemas</i> or, or why our portraits need to talk! And that’s nothing to say of their absurd fashion!” She was really quite mad about this, wasn’t she? “They should assimilate, or, better yet, <i>die</i>.”</p><p>The room went silent. Tom nodded after a beat. “Okay. Thank you for that, Bellatrix. Any other thoughts?”</p><p>“Is this about Thoros Nott?” Evan Rosier asked. “Only, I heard he’s not allowed at the meetings anymore, Dad says.” The boys on either side of him nodded. “Didn’t marry and make an heir, or something.”</p><p>“We should all endeavor to further our families. It is our honor-bound duty,” Lucius Malfoy said, clearly to contribute something, and Tom had never wanted to slap a child quite so much in his adult life. Lucius Malfoy’s mindless adherence to tradition was insufferable. Tom couldn’t remember anyone in his generation being <i>that</i> dully conventional when they were young.</p><p>This was turning into a disaster.</p><p>The middle Black sister—Andromeda, his mind finally supplied, she’d been so young when he left—was speaking quietly with her cousin Sirius. They kept shooting him suspicious glances. Closeness like that, despite their age gap, was a surefire sign that they’d be the black sheep of this generation of Blacks. The family always produced at least one, and Tom remembered Alphard almost fondly.</p><p>Narcissa and Lucius were still sitting indecently, and if the girl had been any closer, she would have been in his lap. He didn’t really care, but he also didn’t want to be an audience for that.</p><p>The Lestrange trio were notably excited by this whole event, and seemed to be talking at him about mudbloods and half-breeds and extermination and all that. He wasn’t really sure; he’d tuned them out around the point when Bellatrix had energetically addressed him as “my lord” for the twelfth time. She was a formidable witch, yes, but a bit fanatical.</p><p>The trio of boys and the twins had moved on from whatever gossip they’d heard about Thoros and now seemed to be complaining about a professor. That left lone little Regulus, who was simply staring up at Tom from the cushion beside him.</p><p>Of all of them, he most liked Regulus. The child was quiet.</p><p>Tom was supposed to be in charge of them for another full hour of this rot. </p><p>He made a decision. Turning to Regulus, he asked the boy, “Have you ever played marbles?” The youngest Black shook his head. “Come on, then,” Tom stood and took the child’s hand, “I’ll show you how.” He paused once they reached the door and looked back into the room. The children were probably going to be fine. Just in case, he said, “Oh—Andromeda.” The girl looked up, startled. “You’re in charge. We’ll be in the west hall,” and Tom led his tiny charge out of that nightmarish mess. The children had definitely beaten him.</p>
<hr/><p>Tom could see the thread. There was a whole skein of yarn, waiting to be knit into a platform of blood purity, ministry dominance, violent insurrection, and suppression of Dumbledore-style left-wing policies. All he needed to do was pick up the needles and stitch together the ferocity of the youth with the farsightedness of his generation in order to take society on all fronts simultaneously. It would be effective. It would also be violent. </p><p>He never objected to a bit of violence, but something nagged at him here. There was an uncertainty to this plan, as effective as it was—there were too many complicating factors, too many unknowns, for Tom to jump in.</p><p>For one, none of the younger generation knew Tom Riddle. To them, he was Lord Voldemort, and though they may have occasionally heard the name “Tom” from their parents, he was certainly not a man with a Muggle surname in their minds. Given the explicitly-violent ideation of many in this group, Tom was one slip of the tongue from  risking the loss of their support. Thank god that Thoros had seen fit to scold him about entrusting his soul to Bellatrix—he shuddered to think about the power she would have over him, if he hadn’t taken back the cup.</p><p>And on another count, well, half of his potential supporters were children or nearly so—students locked up in a castle nine months of the year were useless to him—and the other half were quite settled in their own little fiefdoms. The older generation weren’t rude about it, but… he hadn’t expected so much complacency. Avery had no aspirations bigger than his current position as a Ministry department head. Abraxas was satisfied to have the ear of the Minister and run the Hogwarts Board of Governors. Dolohov and his wife ran a business. Even Mulciber, with the least-prestigious job of the lot, seemed content. It was their wealth that kept them happy, he knew, and their sense of belonging in this world. Piercing that would be irreversible.</p><p>Did he want to start a war?</p><p>Yes, of course, Tom wanted to start a war. Tom had wanted to start a war since he was a child. He hadn’t hanged a rabbit out of <i>boredom</i>. The world had waged war on his existence, and he wanted to fight it into submission, until he had taken his pound of flesh. He didn’t understand the <i>meaning</i> of peace.</p><p>But that was an abstract view, far removed from loss of life and limb and sanity. He wanted a war that knocked down the pillar that was Albus Dumbledore and his condescension masquerading as generosity of spirit. Generous to whom, Albus? Not to filthy, flinty orphans sorted into the wrong house. Dumbledore had marked Tom’s soul as surely as Tom had rent it. </p><p>He didn’t really want to duel Albus.</p><p>More accurately, perhaps: he didn’t want to whip up his friends’ children into a frenzy so they could provide necessary cannon fodder against whatever supporters Dumbledore would marshal, should Tom look like too much of a threat. If Tom could duel Albus to the death—supposing Tom could even die, which he could not at present—he might have taken the chance. Albus would have to play fair, of course, and promise the duel was actually to the death; Tom would stand for none of his Grindelwald shenanigans. Trapped in a prison of your own making for decades until your natural demise? That was a cruelty worse than sudden death, and everyone other than Dumbledore could admit it.</p><p>Tom didn’t so much care about his friends’ children on their own merits. Some seemed reasonable enough, but the age gap precluded him feeling precisely <i>close</i> to them as a potential peer. He could bear to let them die for his cause.</p><p>Except, what was that cause? Buying their unity would require a devoted doctrine of blood purity. That was doable.</p><p>It was also an embarrassment. It was admitting that any part of himself was less than enough. </p><p>Tom was allowed to try and rip the Riddle, the Muggle, the <i>humanity</i> out of himself, but <i>no one else was</i>.</p><p>No, he didn’t like it. Blood purity was a thing he had chewed through, like a feral dog breaking out of a net, to earn the respect of his peers. He’d left it in shreds. He wouldn’t be the man to mend it back together, the half-blood doing the hard labor of restoring the purist structures he’d dismantled. </p><p>The lure, the tantalizing call, of all that power was difficult to resist. When he laid in bed at night, alone, fingering the smooth silk of the Malfoy guest sheets, he could work himself into such a fury that he almost wanted to take it up. Damn the consequences, damn the people he’d leave behind, he could live fully as Lord Voldemort and blast anyone who questioned him to hell.</p><p>Fear was so tiresome, though. He wasn’t sure how Albus tolerated it; the great irony of their opposition was that there may have been no two men more poised to understand each other. Dumbledore’s choice to turn away from him had required him to make do with the people that remained. Should the old man be so surprised that it had been Slytherins who’d eventually accepted him? Even that had been a herculean effort.</p><p>And there was still so much fear. Yes, he stoked the flames of it, when it suited him. He could shoulder a bit of fault in a long life. Nevertheless, it was enough to make him miss Thoros and his bold choice to up and walk. That was the action of a man who did not let his fear rule him. </p><p>Very much unlike Tom Riddle.</p><p>Blood purity was the easiest path to immediate power, the one with the highest chance of success, and the one most likely to spread his chosen name far and wide. Even as a failure, it would be spectacular.</p><p>It also asked Tom to fold himself back into that narrow space where he’d hid in his youth, terrified of people finding him out and taking everything away. Time and time again, that’s what had happened, hadn’t it? He only made progress when he forged a new path, made space for Tom Riddle where people tried to tell him he didn’t belong. He’d been willing to maim and kill along that road, sure, but the maiming and the killing had rarely been the end goal. They served a purpose. All he really wanted was for his greatness to be recognized, and with all that he was, that shouldn’t be so big an ask.</p><p>He would need to think on this further.</p>
<hr/><p>Winter holidays never felt so much like the holidays without a Malfoy party. For all of their reputation as the height of magical Britain’s social scene, there was something indescribably familial about them: the children home from Hogwarts, sneaking away to side halls with their friends; the elderly aunts and uncles that never did seem to know precisely how they were related to Thoros, just that there was some relation; the undeniable camaraderie of seeing his friends all together and watching their families grow. Not even his fight with Tom could ruin the event.</p><p>Of course, this was made easier by Tom’s choice to seek out Thoros partway through the night and apologize.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said in greeting, “for what I did to you.”</p><p>Thoros’ eyebrows shot up in surprise. Tom actually sounded contrite. “You <i>are</i> sorry.” It was—was too good to be true. “Do you know why, yet?”</p><p>Tom flashed him an embarrassed smile. It was nearly identical to his charming, public smile, but the way he slightly averted his eyes was enough of a tell. “Not yet. I’m working on it, but I thought, for just tonight, we could call a détente.”</p><p>“Sure.” Thoros could do that. He’d already taken the time to greet most of his friends and family, what risk was there in spending a few hours of losing himself in Tom Riddle’s orbit? It was nearly the man’s birthday. He could consider it a gift. “Have you been doing well?”</p><p>“Thoros,” Tom rolled his eyes, “you haven’t been speaking to me for over a month. How do you think I’m doing?”</p><p>“Alright, I assumed.”</p><p>“Well, alright,” Tom conceded. “Alright but so dreadfully bored.”</p><p>Thoros laughed in his face. “Abraxas doesn’t do it for you, these days?”</p><p>“He’s the wrong kind of gossip,” Tom began complaining in earnest as he took up Thoros’ arm. Thor let him; he allowed himself to enjoy the touch. “It’s all children and marriages and who’s sleeping with who. Nothing substantive.”</p><p>Tom led Thoros out to the innermost ring of the gardens, enchanted to be warm despite the season. There would be fewer people to bother them outside, and Thoros offered him a conversational olive branch. “Alphard was seen in Dublin with a half-blood Abbott, I heard.”</p><p>“No, that was two weeks back,” Tom said disapprovingly. Thoros never had been on top of the latest gossip, so he only smiled at the correction. “Last week he was screaming at Walburga when the Italian spot in Diagon booked them for overlapping reservations.”</p><p>“I like that place. Have you been since you got back?” Tom looked at him like he was stupid, but Thoros was used to Tom’s moods. “Oh, even Lord Voldemort can make a public appearance for a nice lunch. We’ll go when you get your head on straight again.” </p><p>They stopped in front of an ostentatious wall of roses. Tom sliced one off the bush neatly and began to strip the thorns, peeling each delicately away from the long stem. “It’s not just the gossip, of course,” and Thoros echoed him as encouragement, “it’s—everything, really. Thor, every Knight other than you is married.”</p><p>Thoros knew that all too well, and glared pointedly at Tom until he looked up from his fiddling with the rose stem. Tom realized, belatedly, what he had just said. “Oh. Sorry. I <i>am</i> sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant—they’re all interested in their families. I didn’t know. It’s wives and children until the end of time, Thoros, and I didn’t appreciate that you <i>talk about</i> other subjects.You’ll keep up with academic developments.”</p><p>Thoros wasn’t feeling quite charitable again, yet, and disagreed somewhat meanly. “You’re ignoring Antonin, then?”</p><p>“Why is it always about Antonin?” Tom said, clearly exasperated, and Thoros had no idea what to make of that. “No, he’s—he’s <i>fine</i>, but he’s not you. Thor, I’d rather dissolve than have you ignore me.”</p><p>“Tom—”</p><p>“I know, we’re still fighting as of tomorrow, but let me have tonight,” he said. Tom looked up at Thoros, meeting his eyes for a single instant, then looked down again at his rose with its mangled stem, and Thoros was undone. He pulled Tom into a loose embrace, resting his chin on Tom’s shoulder. “I saw Albus Dumbledore and I didn’t get to talk to you about that, Thor. I’m—I am feeling <i>doubt</i>, second-guessing myself, and I don’t know if he wormed into my mind or if it’s the magic or if it’s a reasonable re-examination of my life. Who am I supposed to tell all that to, if not you?”</p><p>Thoros’ heart broke for Tom. As much as Thoros had learned to live with himself, to live without Tom, to build up his friendships and be happy with his experiences in life, Tom had spent decades running from that sort of contentment. He was pathetic, and even if Thoros thought it was really quite Tom’s own fault, well. He loved the man. “Oh, Tom,” he ran a hand through the shorter hair at the back of Tom’s head, “I will never be able to conceive of how to let you go.”</p><p>Tom’s free hand came up to grab Thoros’ lapel; his nails were stained green from the rose stem. “You’ll wait. Until I’ve figured it out, you’ll wait and you’ll have me back.” He said it like a command, and Tom never delivered a command that he wasn’t terrified to have disobeyed. Thoros didn’t quite kiss his neck, but the brush of his lips when he promised to wait wasn’t precisely avoiding the insinuation of a kiss, either.</p><p>Tom didn’t know it, yet, but Thoros realized in that moment that he’d accepted Tom’s apology. Tom had more work to do. He needed to live his repentance, but Thoros was much too old to hold a grudge against him. From this point on, Thoros had started to forgive.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tom knocked on the plain door of the council flat before him, a bag on one arm and a piece of paper with the address in the opposite hand. There was no noise coming from inside the flat, and he was just checking the address against the flat number when the door finally swung open.</p>
<p>The woman who answered was the type of elderly person that was built on spite alone. She looked too worn down to ever picture as a young lady, and as long as Tom had known her, she’d been old.</p>
<p>“Mrs. Cole—” in all these long years, she’d never given Tom license to use her first name, and he liked that, liked that it was honest, “—Happy birthday.”</p>
<p>“Oranges and brandy again?” Mrs. Cole asked, motioning him in with a suspicious look around the hall. “You’re late.”</p>
<p>Tom fell into the habits of a lifetime, immediately making excuses. “I was abroad for ten years, I didn’t—I had no way to get back to Britain.” He shrank into the hard wooden seat of her dining set, unpacking the gifts as a peace offering.</p>
<p>She closed and locked the door, securing the chain. “Not those years. My birthday this year. It was two days ago.” Mrs. Cole evaluated him with that rheumy glare of hers, the one that had scared half-truths out of so many of her charges. “Ten years make you forget the date?”</p>
<p>Tom swallowed self-consciously. “Wool’s closed. I—I didn’t know.”</p>
<p>“Ah. Back in ‘64. Only a few kids left, then,” she scrabbled around in her dress pockets before withdrawing a cigarette packet, mostly crushed, and a dented lighter, “They got put in homes, with families, they said. Good thing, I think, with all the drugs kids get into these days. Your generation just drank and smoked—want one?”</p>
<p>For old time’s sake, Tom accepted a cigarette and a light. The dusty taste of expired cheap tobacco was as comforting as Mrs. Cole could ever be. </p>
<p>“Anyway,” she said, lighting up and taking a drag, “you thought I’d still be in that hole, at my age?”</p>
<p>“And what is that age, again?” Tom asked smoothly, dropping his ash in a conjured ashtray. Mrs. Cole had gotten over the magic issue ages ago.</p>
<p>“Nice try, boy,” she glared at him, “but you know I’m too old for that sort of work.”</p>
<p>“You were too old for it when I was born,” Tom countered.</p>
<p>“Nah,” she disagreed. “I wasn’t suited for it, but I was young enough had I been. You’d’ve been a good case for this fostering business, coming in as a baby. That was what I thought about, when they closed the place and rehomed the children. Mm. Tom Riddle in some middle-class family, not with me.”</p>
<p>“Who would visit you in your golden years?” he asked lightly, because this was how it went between them. What-ifs weren’t worth engaging. Mrs. Cole had raised him. Mrs. Cole had taught him to hate, had taught him how to choose his battles, and then taught him how to adjust when bigger problems came along. That fragile alliance had lasted for decades. It meant something.</p>
<p>Mrs. Cole thought for a minute. “Not Amy, since the kids… twenty years ago?”</p>
<p>“Almost twenty-five. She was 19 for her first.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Cole rapped her knuckles on the table. “Right, right, and not Billy since he died.”</p>
<p>“Mm,” Tom nodded.</p>
<p>“You could act more surprised,” she accused him. </p>
<p>“I could, but why pretend with you? Orange?” He selected the roundest specimen for her and held it out.</p>
<p>“Hold it, I need to get a knife,” she said as she made to stand.</p>
<p>“A knife? Mrs. Cole—”</p>
<p>“My fingers, boy. Don’t bend like they used to,” she heaved and stood, “I make do.”</p>
<p>Tom looked at the orange rather than look at her “I’ll. I’ll peel yours. Sit down.” Mrs. Cole was a Muggle. Mrs. Cole was an <i>old</i> Muggle, in a practical sense, and not just as a statement of her essence. “And I’ll charm the others. So they peel themselves.”</p>
<p>She stared at him for a full minute before re-seating herself, cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth and half ash, gesturing for him to get on.</p>
<p>Tom stubbed out his cig and began peeling the fruit, digging his nails into the ripe rind until he could start a clean tear. Around and around he went, perfectly separating rind and fruit and staining his fingers with the essence of orange. Mrs. Cole laughed; it was not a pretty sound. “You’re still like that, then.”</p>
<p>“Like what?” Tom asked, hurt more than he could explain.</p>
<p>“Neurotic.”</p>
<p>Tom balked. “I’ve never been—why would you think anything about me had changed?” He freed up half of the orange wedges, handing them over.</p>
<p>“Ten years is a long time,” she said in invitation as she grabbed the remaining half away from him.</p>
<p>Tom grumbled and began peeling his own orange. “Well, sorry to disappoint. It wasn’t some—some quest to <i>find myself</i>, or whatever you envisioned, just standard-fare learning.”</p>
<p>“Nothing about you’s ever been standard, Tom Riddle,” she laughed, swallowing an orange wedge whole in an eerily snakelike manner. “Not since you started slithering.”</p>
<p>“Crawling,” he corrected. “I talk to snakes, not become one. Different skill set.”</p>
<p>She fixed him with a look that made him shrink back. “Slithered, boy. Take it from the woman who had to catch you.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” That was… disconcerting information. “I did not know.”</p>
<p>“You were almost cute at that age. Big blue eyes—didn’t know you could fuck that up, kid, this magic seems bad for you—” Tom winced, if even his Muggle… if even Mrs. Cole was commenting on his appearance, the magic really had been too much, too dark, “and round cheeks. None of you ever got plump, really, but you would’ve been an easy adoptee. If not for the hissing. And the slithering.” Tom ate an orange wedge to avoid responding. “Lucky you had me.”</p>
<p>Oh, that was too much. “Because you were too pissed to care about the oddities?” he shot back.</p>
<p>“Because I always found a way,” she said, finishing her orange. Tom pushed two of his wedges over to her side of the table. “Worked with you, didn’t I? I could’ve thrown you out for the rabbit.”</p>
<p>“I was <i>eight</i>,” Tom stressed. You kill one rabbit…</p>
<p>“Eight was old enough, then. Could’ve done it. Didn’t. You had a home, boy.”</p>
<p>Tom finished the last of his orange in silence. Mrs. Cole didn’t use the word home like other people did. To someone else it meant, well—he couldn’t define it, he’d never had it, but it surely seemed like something warmer and more welcoming than Wool’s had ever been. But Wool’s had certainly been a place to return to. A place that had never turned him out, despite everything. That was something. It was an understanding he’d kept with him, and the pattern repeated throughout his life. Slytherin house had been there, begrudgingly. His dingy Knockturn Alley flat he kept for over a decade had been a testament to the fate he’d evaded in the Muggle world. Ten nomadic years across the globe had proven his independence, but home was, to Tom, the place that would have you back. </p>
<p>He stood when he’d finished eating, picking up both peels and putting them in her kitchen bin. Charming the remaining oranges to peel themselves on command, he hesitated with his wand over the brandy. “You want some help with this, too?”</p>
<p>Mrs. Cole scoffed at him from her seat. “I still know how to open a bottle.”</p>
<p>“Right.” He paused, but there was no use dwelling on that. The habits of a lifetime don’t change.  “Well, then. Next year.”</p>
<p>“Go on,” she waved him off. “You’ve done your duty.”</p>
<p>“Next year,” he said again, bidding her a final goodbye.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The Dolohov residence was more of a country house than a manor, but Thoros had always found it more welcoming than most of his friends’ homes. Nott Castle, for all of its ancestral legacy, was a crude old stone thing. No number of warming charms and wool tapestries could erase the fact that Thor was living in a relic of a different century. In contrast, Antonin’s home, purchased by his father when he immigrated to Britain, was a sprightly ninety years old with glass windows that hadn’t been retrofitted. </p>
<p>Antonin met him at the front door, as Thor had opted to apparate. They greeted Irina on their way to Antonin’s office—she was showing, this time, and he hoped this pregnancy would stick. They’d been through too much, and though Max was adjusting well to his Muggle school, Thor knew they still keenly felt the pressure to produce a magical child. It was… challenging, not having passed that milestone. He would know.</p>
<p>Those thoughts were shoved aside when he and Antonin settled on opposite sides of his desk, blank parchment and quills set between them.</p>
<p>“You said this would be an interesting problem,” Antonin opened, “but that you wouldn’t have a full, mm, picture. What business have you gotten involved with, Fedya?”</p>
<p>Thor grimaced. He’d put this off for as long as possible, but if he was ever to find a solution—and he felt that he’d need one sooner, not later—he needed to bring in another expert. “Well, it might be easier to tell you what I do know, and you can help me fill in the blank spots.” He took up a quill and began to make notes.</p>
<p>“Horcruxes, Antonin.” The other man frowned but nodded silently. “Importantly: horcruxes, plural, made by a single individual. It’s theoretically possible, of course—multiple murders would be required, but if you’re the type to make one horcrux, well,” Thor gestured casually rather than finish the thought, “Which leaves the ritual. It’s esoteric, but the largest barrier seems to be making the adjustments for your individual magical signature, which—and I am theorizing here, understand—I don’t see changing after a successful horcrux. There’s so few things that can impact it, and the creation of a horcrux would be a candidate, but I have reason to believe that is not the case. Either that, or…” Or Tom had recalculated this flawlessly every time. His magic had felt the same to Thor, though, so he was hoping he had the correct read on this.</p>
<p>“Let’s just say,” Thor offered as a weak explanation to Antonin’s questioning expression, “the magic smells the same to me, so I’m operating with this assumption. So, again, we have a requirement that must be completed for one horcrux, but each subsequent horcrux requires no additional work. In fact, the amortized cost of this labor across multiple horcruxes might incentivize their creation, for the correct individual.”</p>
<p>“We are not naming that individual, yes?” Antonin looked at him squarely, his own parchment half-covered in notes, quill poised over the next line. They both knew it was Tom. There was no question of who, in their lives, might recklessly rip their soul to shreds. There was no question of for whom Thoros would even attempt a repair of this magnitude. This was—this was nothing more than a question of how to file the paperwork.</p>
<p>“Client remains anonymous for now,” Thor said briskly. “Let us assume there are multiple horcruxes, but the total number remains undetermined.” He paused for a minute. “Probably not exceeding single digits, given the client’s history and probable choice of reliquary.”</p>
<p>“It seems a bad omen, ascribing religious symbolism to a horcrux, Thoros.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps,” Thor agreed. “I must be religiously devoted to this endeavor, to consider taking it on, though.” Tom Riddle had planted himself in Thoros’ pantheon at a formative age, and like a weed, grown to fill whatever space given. Far be it from Thor to try and rip him out now; he’d earned his place.</p>
<p>Antonin looked concerned for the briefest of seconds but wisely held his tongue. He scratched something out, made another note, and cleared his throat. “Everything you’ve described so far is firmly in the realm of the ritualist, and therefore your area of expertise. What do you need from me?”</p>
<p>“I can deconstruct how a horcrux is made, but what I want to determine is whether one—no, multiple—can be pieced together. Is the soul malleable in that form? We know—know is a strong word, actually,” Thor guessed he looked a little stricken, and he felt his voice catch as he said, “We theorize based on the literature that a horcrux can be healed through remorse.” Antonin appeared to still be following, which was a blessing. The literature Thoros referenced here was hardly commonplace or legal reading, and though Antonin would never report such a thing, Thoros would have had to bring him to Nott Castle to share those texts. Too much hassle. “Remorse might not be… forthcoming, in this client. I hope to work on that. If it were to happen, I think it unlikely the client would agree to go through the process of reconciling a horcrux with his primary soul portion more than once, hence the goal of recombining all outstanding horcruxes, their soul pieces, into one object.”</p>
<p>“That is quite the problem,” Antonin said, letting out a heavy breath. “I think, maybe, tea.”</p>
<p>Thoros sat while Antonin withdrew to the kitchen. Coming here today had been risky, but not in the sense that Tom would be violently angry. Or, if he was, he wouldn’t direct that at Thoros and Antonin. Not yet.</p>
<p>And that was the crux, Thor smiled at his own pun, of the issue. “Yet.” Tom seemed largely stable, but the effort that required was likely larger than he could sustain for many more years. He was also at risk of creating more horcruxes; he was not trustworthy with his own soul. More of it lived outside of his body than within.</p>
<p>The problem was intellectually stimulating. Soul magic was uncommon, enough people having abandoned the rituals of the old days, that a modern ritualist never had volunteers for experimenting and innovating new uses. The consequences of something gone wrong were terrible, of course. Many of the original rituals likely relied on unwilling participants. Ethics had come quite far since the Dark Ages. All that was true, and yet—</p>
<p>And yet if the soul <i>was</i> malleable, that was <i>fascinating</i>. </p>
<p>It had all sorts of implications on supposedly-unbreakable soul-bondings, from adoptions and marriages to… less common relationships. There were uses. There were customers, for this sort of work. There were even texts to be written, for the right sort of audience, if one was careful. Tom Riddle had made an unbelievably irresponsible choice and set himself up as a perfect test subject. It helped that he was clearly beginning to regret this choice and would be a willing participant. Thoros didn’t want to think about the protections he must have set around his horcruxes; stealing them and attempting the reunification without his consent would have been suicidal.</p>
<p>Thor might still have tried.</p>
<p>Antonin returned with the tea service and they resumed their work. “What I think,” he said, handing Thoros his cup and saucer, “is that the soul will want to be together. The horcrux—it’s an unnatural state for a soul. I suspect the shards might be attracted to each other, given the ability to loosen them from their containers, and directing them to join as one in a single vessel should be possible. They will require the vessel, as an anchor, and I do not think the client should be present. That’s our risk: the soul might want to reattach to the main host, but without remorse we cannot guarantee how that join happens. Can it happen? Would the whole soul be rejected by the body, in the absence of remorse? The body without a soul, Fedya…”</p>
<p>“Yes.” Thoros’ mood was grim despite the company. “We have all feared the affections of Dementors, and I take your point. The client should not be present, which requires the client to trust at least one person with their most precious possessions. Let’s suppose that becomes my problem to solve. What else should we consider?”</p>
<p>Antonin paused his quill to drink before speaking. “The specifics of the ritual are your area—I trust you’re studying the runes used in creation as a basis for modification.”</p>
<p>“I have had to derive the personalization for the client’s magical signature on my own, given the nature of this commission,” being that Tom hadn’t officially spoken with Thoros about any of this, Thoros having cut him off when he’d tried, “but I have made progress and plan to verify my work against the client’s original ritual.”</p>
<p>“So I am here as your dark arts specialist,” Antonin stated, and Thor confirmed with a sharp nod. “There are a few sources I want to check with before I confirm I can help. I’ll make this a priority,” for Tom’s sake was left unspecified, “but even so, I anticipate a few months before I will be able to get you a concrete answer.”</p>
<p>“Understood, and that’s acceptable.” Thoros dropped the professional affect he’d maintained thus far, and looking his old friend in the eye, he said to Antonin, “This is more than I have a right to ask you for. Anything you can provide, even if you have to remove yourself from active effort and pretend that this conversation never happened, is helpful beyond words.”</p>
<p>Antonin placed his quill carefully in the holder and met Thor’s eyes. “More of him will exist in an inanimate object than in his body. More of him than has existed in one place, perhaps, since we were young. You have thought about what happens if he doesn’t wish to reconcile these parts? What he would have to give up, the work he would undo, to make that happen? We can’t be sure that remorse for one death will be enough to put him back together, even with the rejoined soul. He might still need remorse for all of them. Is that possible?”</p>
<p>The questions hit Thoros like a bludger and he deflated in his seat. “Antonin, I have to hope. What else is there?”</p>
<p>The other man forged on, his interrogation growing more blunt. “What does personhood mean for a man whose body is almost an empty shell? We consider victims of Dementors to be non-entities; that’s why it serves as our worst punishment.”</p>
<p>“I have to try. He wants to try.”</p>
<p>“He said this to you?” Antonin looked skeptical.</p>
<p>Thoros laughed bitterly. “I cut him off. We’re fighting, remember?”</p>
<p>“You’re risking too much for him. You’re out of the Knights, and he’s still sane and stable enough to accept that. You could hole up in your castle and ride this out; leave those of us who are complacent or afraid,” Antonin sneered at the second label, clearly rejecting it for himself, “to carry out his inevitable mess.”</p>
<p>“See, I think that’s where we differ, Antonin,” Thoros smiled fondly, “I don’t think it’s inevitable. He’s always had the capacity to surprise us.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>Tom didn’t own very much.</p>
<p>He shouldn’t have been surprised by this, considering that he’d been nomadic for a decade, and lived on a shop clerk’s income before that. These past six months were supposed to have been his glorious return and the re-establishment of his support base, though, so to realize all of his belongings could still be packed in an afternoon was surprising. He hadn’t set down roots at all.</p>
<p>He owned books, but only the most rare, niche, and recent texts. Anything particularly old or widespread enough to have been made illegal was replicated in the libraries of multiple Knights. Malfoy, Nott, Dolohov—to say nothing of what he might worm out of the Blacks with Bellatrix as a supporter—could provide the standards of even the darkest magic. Frankly, he didn’t have the money or time to build up an equivalent private collection, and he owned more self-published pamphlets than true books.</p>
<p>He owned clothes, but only enough to get by. He wasn’t a peacock like Malfoy, or the head of the type of old family to get invited to public events. Tom was a deft hand at transfiguration, and his current, single set of dress robes was sufficient for parties. Beyond that, well—he knew how to mend, and he’d always made do with less.</p>
<p>What else was there to own? Horcruxes and grooming supplies and a handful of magical oddities, but for Tom, apparently not much else. He had built a life on top of Abraxas’ generosity. He was a 45-year-old man with the physical imprint of a recent Hogwarts graduate. It was embarrassing.</p>
<p>Tom unpacked with a violent slash of his wand, sending papers and shirts fluttering back to their spots in the guest suite. He needed to broach the subject with Abraxas.</p>
<p>“I’m moving out,” he told his host later that evening, over whisky. </p>
<p>“Not tonight, I hope,” Abraxas said simply in response.</p>
<p>“Your cleverness never fails to amuse me,” Tom said in a distinctly un-amused tone. “This might be a premature announcement, but I do plan to leave in another, shall we say, month. I need to—to arrange some things first.”</p>
<p>Undaunted, and perhaps emboldened by the whisky or the night, Abraxas smirked, and Tom flinched back. “You mean to say,” the blond drawled, “that you need to see whether Thoros will take you in.”</p>
<p>“I’m not. I am not intending to just <i>switch</i> my host. I am thankful,” Tom grit his teeth, “for what you’ve offered me. You opened your home to me for months, and I appreciate that. I was in no shape to make alternative arrangements when I returned to Britain,” Tom admitted, running a hand along the back of his neck, “and you made the transition very easy. However, this is different. I will not be a guest in my next residence, wherever that may be.”</p>
<p>“That was very kind of you to say,” Abraxas laughed. “Tell me one thing, as payment for all this: did he finally move into Cantankerus’ old suite, or is he still in his childhood room? He’s never let me up to that floor.”</p>
<p>Tom rolled his eyes at his friend’s crassness, but said, “If you must know, he redid his childhood bedroom as a master suite. Nott Castle is nearly as sentient as Hogwarts; I helped him persuade it back in the ‘50s.”</p>
<p>“Persuade it, as in… ?”</p>
<p>“You absolute <i>boor</i>.” Tom pretended to scoff, but he was secretly entertained by the impertinence. “The usual way. You do remember how it’s done between two men? It took a month and a half of me living there for the castle to get the picture, but it never reverted when I moved out.” That had been a memorable summer, back when he was handsome and athletic. Sneaking around behind their friends’ backs and maintaining the charade of living in his own flat had been the energizing type of stupidity he missed most from his youth.</p>
<p>“I hope he at least cleared out his father’s rooms before he shut them. Dealing with that sort of thing doesn’t get any easier with age—you’ll have to ensure that he does, Tom.” Abraxas sniffed and took a sip of his whisky as though he hadn’t just betrayed a mortifying level of sentimentality. “And if you aren’t moving in with Thoros, where will you go?”</p>
<p>“I’ve lived on my own for almost thirty years,” Tom defended himself, jabbing with the hand that held the whisky glass so that the liquid sloshed wildly. </p>
<p>“You had an income.”</p>
<p>“The last ten years—”</p>
<p>“I dread,” Abraxas enunciated painfully, “to hear how you lived for those ten years. Don’t tell me. I won’t survive it.”</p>
<p>“You won’t survive the telling?” Tom scoffed, clucking his tongue. “Your sensibilities are far too delicate. This is why we never worked out.”</p>
<p>“We didn’t work out because I had a son and a wife, who, by the by, you should really thank for tolerating you in her home,” Abraxas reprimanded, but it was only lip-service. That relationship was his mess to handle, and Tom had no business meddling with whatever balance they’d worked out. Tom would leave Adrienne flowers when he moved out, and she’d interpret them as a slight, and that was the way of things. Abraxas deluded himself if he thought they could ever manage something more.</p>
<p>“Regardless. I’ll spin the organization into a job, if I must. I’m a man of many skills,” Tom said pompously while Abraxas laughed at him, “and I can support myself. I still have the old Riddle Manor, if needs must.”</p>
<p>“You haven’t burnt that thing down?”</p>
<p>“Call me sentimental,” Tom said with a grimace. “Maybe I’ll find a use for it someday.”</p>
<p>Abraxas looked skeptical, swirling the last of his drink slowly. “I hesitate to imagine just how desperate you would need to be for that to happen.”</p>
<p>“The circumstances would be dire,” Tom nodded along, “but in my sort of life, you plan for that. There was a time, not too long ago, when I seriously worried that Albus Dumbledore might try to mount a physical opposition to my presence.”</p>
<p>Abraxas stopped his swirling. “What changed?”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Tom paused, putting on a thoughtful air. “I won’t give him reason to. I considered, among various options, what it would mean to fight him. Magically, that is. Duelling in the streets and all that. It sounds invigorating, but,” Tom lamented playfully, “it really centers Albus a bit too strongly in my legacy. He already has the credit for one dark wizard’s rise to power, and at least that man got to sleep with him—allegedly. Not that he’s my type. Not now.” Tom paused a second time, genuinely. “Do you think he was much to look at, as a younger man?”</p>
<p>“Albus Dumbledore is not remotely my type, either, and he’s older than my father would have been,” Abraxas chided. “Still. Gellert Grindelwald was a handsome man, wasn’t he? Remember his pictures in the paper? Dumbledore must have been something.”</p>
<p>“What a heartless thing to do to a former lover,” Tom rolled his eyes, “At least kill the man.”</p>
<p>“The kindness of a quick and painless death, yes?” Abraxas drained his glass and placed it on the desk between them.</p>
<p>Tom shook his head. “Oh, a poisoning or a sickness would work, too.” He smiled. “For you, I’d choose dragon pox. We’re almost of the correct age for that to be fatal.”</p>
<p>“Thank you ever so much. I’ll just go make a note of that with my solicitor…” Abraxas huffed and turned away. “And for Thoros?”</p>
<p>“Marriage, not literal death. It’s a metaphor.”</p>
<p>“It’s cruel, is what it is,” Abraxas said gently. “Merlin help the man, but that would be a sort of death for him. You aren’t better than Dumbledore, if you’ve planned all this.”</p>
<p>“I’m addressing my mistakes. That has to be enough,” Tom replied with a hard undertone, placing his empty glass beside Abraxas’. “I am revising plans. You’ll know when they’re ready. All I can promise, all I’ve ever promised, is that with me, you’ll have influence. You still want that, in any form it takes, correct?”</p>
<p>“I am a Malfoy,” Abraxas said like an answer, and Tom supposed that it was. “A month, then? We’ll have a party for your last night.”</p>
<p>“No, no—nothing large. Just you and Adrienne, please. Should it—well. You know.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tom held his breath as Thoros’ secretary led him through the office. It was a silly affectation, a childish indulgence that rarely reared its head any longer, but that little bit of control—<i>I won’t breathe until I’ve done this</i>—gave him the strength to stand in front of Thor in this moment. Thor nodded for his secretary to close the door, and Tom could breathe again.</p><p>“Tom,” Thoros greeted him levelly, staying seated behind his desk. It was a nice desk, the sort of antique that Tom had always envied in pureblood homes. The dark walnut desk top was framed by intricate rosewood veneer inlays and Tom wanted to trace them, or maybe scream about them, because Thoros doubtless did not appreciate the detail enough. </p><p>Tom was definitely avoiding his reason for being here.</p><p>He steeled himself. “Thoros,” Tom began before revising, “Thor. I’m here to apologize.”</p><p>“I knew you would be,” Thor responded neutrally, and Tom felt anxious as he moved to take his seat. “Let’s talk it out. What do you have to say?”</p><p>It was so painfully awkward. Tom felt the vast distance between them and longed to have this conversation sitting by Thor’s side, or, better yet, spooned against him in bed. Neither of those was happening now. Thoros wasn’t angry—he appeared patiently composed, and their last meeting had been proof enough that Thor still cared for him, cared deeply, and possibly wanted this rift to close as much as Tom did.</p><p>Closeness would make it too easy to move on without addressing the issue, though, Tom knew. He intellectually understood that covering up the hole wouldn’t be a full repair, that he needed to patch and mend thoughtfully so that their relationship could be stronger for the experience—</p><p>Or whatever horseshit the books he’d found in the Malfoy library said. He’d never admit to reading them.</p><p>So Tom closed his eyes, forced them back open, and faced Thoros with as much transparency as he could bear. “I’m sorry, Thor. I know—I think you know I mean that,” Thoros nodded slightly but did not interrupt, “and I do. I’m sorry that I took away your agency. I was… no, I am afraid,” Tom had to force out the words, and unconsciously closed his eyes again, “to be seen as subordinate to a pureblood, and I put that on you. That’s not something for which you, individually, can be responsible.”</p><p>He opened his eyes when he stopped speaking, just in time to watch Thor lean forward and extend his hand across the desk. Tom met him partway, clasping Thoros’ hand with his own and pulling it up to rub against his cheek. His hand was warm and rough with quill calluses and so achingly familiar that Tom had to close his eyes again and just breathe through the immensity of the feeling.</p><p>“This is not an excuse,” he said, “but I do know how this world works, and how our arrangement would be perceived. I resent that. Even Abraxas’ hospitality was intended to be temporary, and I would have led the Knights from my own base. I—I’m moving out, I didn’t tell you. I haven’t told you so much, Thor. I’m moving out in a month and I’d always planned on doing that within the first year.”</p><p>“Move in with me,” Thoros said, as though it were the most obvious solution, then laughed at himself and looked embarrassed. He pulled his hand back before Tom could catch it again and corrected himself. “If you like. I don’t mean to impose.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t I be the one imposing?” Tom asked, diffusing the tension. Thoros smiled in that quiet way he always did, and it was alright. Everything would be alright.</p><p>Thor leaned forward again, hands flat on his desk. “Tell me about it all, then. What trouble has my lord been causing?”</p><p>Tom pulled a face at the title and ran a hand over the bridge of his nose. “Right, about that. So I talked to everyone—”</p><p>“Everyone? Who is everyone?” Thor’s eyebrows shot up.</p><p>“Oh, you know,” Tom waved lazily, but Thor was going to make him spell it out. “The supporters. All of our friends, and—and the younger generation.” Thoros’ expression of disbelief was priceless before he schooled it away into neutrality. “I have decided, upon consultation with both groups and personal reflection, not to move forward as Lord Voldemort.”</p><p>“Tom—are you quite sure? I know you wanted that.” Thor looked stricken and Tom held himself back from reaching out to him. He’d have to launch himself nearly over the desk, and the effort wasn’t worth the indignity. He couldn’t lose his composure so early into the meeting.</p><p>“Oh, the younger set will feign an expression of sadness when I move on,” Tom assured, “Did you hear the name they’ve given themselves? The Death Eaters? It’s more fanciful than Voldemort, I think.” Thoros snorted in laughter; he doubtless had many thoughts on the Voldemort mythology that Tom did not want to know. “However, you and I both know they’re ultimately thrill-seeking. They would lend me support in exchange for the excuse to perform violence, to drink and indulge and call it a political action. I could use that,” Tom knew too well that he could, he’d considered it twenty years ago with a different generation and considered it again even more strongly now, “but I find myself most put off by our generation, Thor. We’re complacent. We’re settled. Even you have a career, don’t you?”</p><p>“I’ve never claimed anything less than contentment with my life, Tom,” Thoros said with a note of caution. Tom had made the mistake of referencing marriage in one attempted reconciliation already; he would not ignore the warning this time. “I fail to see how that could do anything but enrage you, though.”</p><p>“It does,” Tom agreed mildly, belying his deep well of anger, “I am enraged. I would kill you all, or sideline you, replace you with your children, if you hadn’t proven yourselves able to rise to my more active demands as Lord Voldemort.”</p><p>“I would have,” Thoros nearly whispered. He wasn’t looking up at Tom, instead, he was tracing that rosewood inlay with one long finger. He had a spot of blue ink staining the nail. “I would have done nearly anything you asked.”</p><p>And Tom was forced to swallow back his objections, because Thoros was being honest. He would have. It was a testament to how much he’d been upset that he’d walked away from the Knights; Tom had asked for perhaps the one thing Thor couldn’t give him. </p><p>A treacherous thought slithered through Tom’s head: maybe it was for the best that he’d asked this of Thoros. If Thoros hadn’t walked away from the Knights, what could have slowed Tom enough to reconsider his path? Would he have eventually dragged even Thoros so far down that the man’s boundaries could not hold? Tom shivered and felt the final vestiges of Lord Voldemort leave his shredded soul.</p><p>“I know,” he said simply, because he really did know. He could nearly taste how it might have turned out, and the thought of Thoros being broken like that—and of their friends laid low by his own vanity, their children driven mad, fractured by the demands of Tom’s desires—was terrifying. Awe-inspiring, but terrifying. Tom was not a seer, but he believed in divination and respected ill omens.</p><p>“I know you would have, Thor,” Tom’s eyes snapped back into focus, “as would very few others. And I found myself thinking, to gain all that power, I would be selling the very same blood purism that I had to fight my way through. You, you purebloods—I will not sing your praises. I will not do that, for my own sake.”</p><p>Thoros smiled, giving Tom the reassurance he needed to continue. “I’ve some idea of what I might pursue next, but all in due time. First, I move on from Malfoy Manor, next, the horcrux issue…” Thoros looked almost like he wanted to speak, and Tom realized at once his friend must have investigated the problem while they were apart.</p><p>So he didn’t launch himself across the desk, again, because he’d made it this far without losing self-control, but he did, admittedly, want to. Wanted to grab for that hand twitching over the rosewood inlay and just <i>hold</i>.</p><p>He cleared his throat instead. “And then, then I think about the politics.” Thoros looked just as startled that Tom had broken the short silence as Tom felt in having done so. “You don’t have to invite me into your home,” he said to clear the air.</p><p>“I want to,” Thor responded earnestly, hesitantly.</p><p>“I won’t come as a guest.” Tom would stand for nothing less.</p><p>“I wouldn’t have you as a guest,” Thor said. “I doubt the castle would, either. She still sees you as something… more than that, I believe.”</p><p>“Is my study still there?” Tom asked offhandedly, though his nonchalance was practiced. “I hadn’t thought to check, last time…”</p><p>“The door’s never left our bedroom, Tom.” Thoros’ smile was brittle, a little wistful, and Tom couldn’t feel sad to have put it there—he couldn’t regret his need to travel, to learn, to become himself on his own terms—but he could feel a seed of comfort growing, knowing he’d have a chance to fix that. Thor wasn’t done speaking, though. “And I want to be clear with you: I accept your apology. I forgive you.”</p><p>“Just like that?” Tom wondered aloud. He would have to learn this business of trust.</p><p>“Since around the holidays, really,” Thoros admitted, just a touch too sure of himself, and Tom was incensed. </p><p>“You made me wait!” his voice rose, affronted and amused all at once. “You made me wait over a month, no—I won’t hear any objections. Take me home, Thor. You’ll make this up to me, now.”</p><p>“We <i>are</i> much too old to fuck on a desk,” Thoros agreed with an easy grin, and they were gone.</p>
<hr/><p>Standing in front of their bathroom mirror earlier in the morning, Thor had told Tom he looked handsome. It was an exaggeration, perhaps, especially if one remembered Tom from his youth. Still, with Thor behind him, arms wrapped around Tom’s waist and chin on his shoulder, he’d felt that maybe—maybe it all had worked, the months of effort—or maybe it was just that he ate regular meals now. He wasn’t so deathly thin anymore. And his hair held its curls again.</p><p>Maybe it didn’t really matter what had changed, if Thoros made him feel handsome.</p><p>He’d been a ball of nerves, leading into today, and he’d clung to Thor tightly up until the moment they apparated to Diagon. Thoros took Tom’s offered elbow and followed, a half-step behind him, the picture of a supportive partner as they made their way through the street and into the restaurant, that nice Italian one Thor’d taken him to the night after he moved in. They greeted and chatted and Thoros was there through it all, rubbing a secret circle into Tom’s arm when they spotted Alastor Moody and Minerva McGonagall just <i>coincidentally</i> dining out together this summer afternoon, letting Tom lean against him so slightly in the lull between conversations, and Tom could kiss him—would kiss him, later tonight—for being there.</p><p>But the room settled, and his guests were seated in the event space they’d rented, and it was ultimately on Tom to follow through. </p><p>Tom stood with muted thanks and looked out at his audience. The room was filled with his Knights and friends, their spouses and children, and even a few unfamiliar faces. Cygnus and Druella were sitting by her brother, all three of their daughters present, and he had been pleasantly surprised to see Galatea and her wife keeping Horace company. He’d asked Abraxas to make this an event to remember, but in his wildest dreams, he hadn’t imagined this much. They were crowding the space, nearly spilling into the main dining area, and it was glorious. Everyone eavesdropping in from outside would have to report on how many people had turned out for Tom Riddle.</p><p>He cleared his throat as their eyes fixed on him. Thoros, seated by his side, gave him an encouraging nod and the faintest of smiles. </p><p>“I have been welcomed by all of you. As a half-blood raised by Muggles,” he said boldly and more than one member of his audience murmured in surprise, “and an orphan without a connection to his birth family, it was no small feat to be introduced to the magical world through Slytherin house. Our house,” for nearly everyone here was a proud Slytherin, “values loyalty and history, and I will surprise no one who knew me as a child when I admit that I had very little of either, at that age.” A few in the crowd laughed, but none so baldly as Galatea, who startled Horace into spilling his drink. “I had to earn your loyalty, and you all my own. As I recall, that trust was not given easily to a boy of my background,” he accused gently, to deflected gazes, “but we worked past initial misgivings. We built a shared history, and I think that the number of you here, today, is a testament to the strength of that choice.” He was vastly underplaying the years of bullying he’d endured as a young student. Tom made sacrifices for the cause.</p><p>“You all, members of old, established wizarding families, recognized that in the case of this one, nameless half-blood, your prejudices failed you. You learned to see me for the friend and ally I would become, and you mentored me,” he raised his glass in the direction of Galatea and Horace, “or you socialized this feral child in the ways of wizarding culture.” Tom winked at Avery and wondered if he still had the bite scar from their first fight.</p><p>“I’m afraid I’ve been squandering your support.” Tom transitioned quickly, resisting the urge to gesture too broadly. He needed restraint for this crowd. “You all took a chance on me, and you have been loyal friends for decades while I have not accomplished anything like the grand promises I made to you all in our collective youth. No, don’t shake your heads—I accept responsibility for this.” Alastor and Minerva must be shitting themselves, out in the main area, and Tom allowed himself to smile. “I have focused on myself, on learning and magically growing, for which I cannot apologize. Anyone who knows me should know I pride myself on my knowledge,” he laughed lightly, signalling the crowd to follow. “However, you all have left your mark on our world. You’ve built careers and retired from them. You’ve married, raised children, and seen your children married off. Books will be written about the accomplishments of many in this room, and the others will impact generations of your descendants.”</p><p>Thoros found his hand, placed flat on their table, and squeezed it gently. “I hate to repeat myself, but I am a half-blood and an orphan.” He emphasized the point. Try to pin the Chamber of Secrets business on me, Albus, I dare you, Tom thought with satisfaction. “It might shock some of you to know that for people in my situation, family legacy isn’t quite so easy to come by.” Strained laughter, this time, from this pureblood crowd. “At first, I despaired over my personal legacy,” and multiple horcruxes could be considered a form of despair, “For years, I thought I should need to live a very long life in order to do enough to be remembered.” An immortal life, perhaps. “You all can see the result of that fatalism—decades spent afraid to take a definitive first step, paralyzed by a desire for perfection. I learned and grew and shared nothing. This is the mistake.”</p><p>Tom fiddled with his glass and Thor silently directed him to put it down. The public acknowledgment of his blood status had been the first test, but this was the second, and perhaps the most important. Everyone above a certain age in the room knew him as Tom Riddle, even if they’d tried to bury that memory; his blood status was an open secret. He had been avoiding looking toward the Lestrange table, where Bellatrix sat, but it was just the younger generation that would have felt blindsided by the reveal. Blood prejudice existed in this audience, undoubtedly, but for most of them, Tom was the exception. The second test of their goodwill was to expand that exception.</p><p>“If my legacy consists of only my personal accomplishments, it is necessarily limited to one man’s abilities. To one lifetime, even if it is a long lifetime. All of you, with your family histories and future generations of children, figured this out long ago. Absent that, I want to do what you all did for me, so generously,” and this was a stretch, a necessary softening of history, “when you welcomed me. I want for us, my Knights, my friends, to welcome each new generation of Slytherins. We’re brethren. We are loyal and we survive through that loyalty. Every young half-blood, every child coming from a Muggle home,” and wasn’t that a convoluted way of saying Muggleborn, “should have our patronage, the same as our own sons and daughters.”</p><p>He steadied himself. The crowd was silent, waiting to see if he would say anything more before they cast their judgment. Chancing a glance over to Edmund, he noticed that the man seemed perfectly placid, and his eldest son had a solid arm around Bellatrix. She looked—unsettled, to put it generously, but she hadn’t made a scene. Blacks made a scene when truly upset, so this was good news. He was doing okay.</p><p>Thoros placed his hand over Tom’s on the table, entwining their fingers. The band of the Gaunt ring shined up at him, perfectly fitted on Thor’s finger, and he felt the weight of the Nott signet on his own hand.</p><p>“The past few decades have put strain on our house. Slytherin, for all of its strength, is finding itself unable to apply our shining skills to the tensions of our current era. I say this without having to carry the burden of your family legacies, and I know how it might seem if I’m not careful. Further, I’ve been abroad; I am out of touch with our latest political issues. I know this, and I know I, alone, cannot fix this. However, as a house, we know that we are at our best when we watch out for each other. Let us learn from the example of our head,” Tom gestured to Horace, who waved cheerily at the crowd, always happy for attention, “and acknowledge the importance of our network. Horace has agreed to help administer this effort from within Hogwarts, and I will need all of you to continue your support through my Knights. The Knights are my legacy; they are <i>our</i> legacy, and from this day forward, this organization, built on our friendship and respect, will be an active participant in our world. Education, policy, and society will expand as we grow them with our values, the values you all displayed in accepting me, that can only improve us. Thank you.”</p><p>Tom retook his seat to the sound of short but genuine applause. As the crowd picked up again, conversation percolating out from the edges of the room until it had spread throughout, Thoros pulled him into a kiss. Thor threaded a hand through Tom’s hair and put his other arm around his back, holding him as close as their seats would allow, and Tom closed his eyes as he was swept up.</p><p>“I’m proud of you,” Thor whispered when they broke apart. “You were gregarious and warm. You’ve got us all dancing to your Imperius, Tom, and half of magical Britain will know about this by tomorrow. You’re incredible. <i>Incredible</i>.”</p><p>Tom picked up Thoros’ left hand, rubbing the heavy stone in the ring Thoros wore with his thumb. “I do owe a lot to you. You, and Malfoy, Dolohov, Lestrange, all of my Knights. Not as I portrayed it, of course,” Tom quietly scoffed and Thor bit his lip in a clear effort not to laugh, “You lot were <i>terrors</i>, but the world doesn’t need to know that. Do you—do you think it’ll take?”</p><p>“‘Built on friendship and respect,’ Tom,” Thor parroted back his words. “You called yourself a half-blood three times. Whatever happens next, you’ve derailed any of Dumbledore’s plans. His opposition is obsolete. He’s out of the picture. You are working on your own, love.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” Tom demurred with a smile. “I have an awful lot of loyal friends, and a partner who can even persuade me to apologize.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading this short story! I promised at the start that I would write Tom around to a decent apology. Did it work for you?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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